The Divine Depth of Love
/CARISSA PLUTA
Earlier this summer, I went to confession with a priest who asked me to spend a few minutes thinking about things about my husband that I am grateful for.
PHOTOGRAPHY: CAITLIN RENN PHOTOGRAPHY
Easy, I thought as I left the confessional. But as I sat down in the pew with my pen and journal in hand, I found it wasn’t actually as easy as I thought.
I love my husband. He’s an amazing man and I am thankful for him, but putting into words why I am grateful for him felt like trying to hold the whole ocean in my hands.
If you had asked me right after Ben and I met what his best qualities were, I’d have been able to tell you in a heartbeat. He’s handsome, funny, smart, and kind.
But now, after almost seven years of friendship, five years of being in a relationship, and three years of marriage, these words feel inadequate.
Trying to quantify and define the parts of him I loved felt limiting. I don’t love Ben because he’s handsome or funny or gentle, but because he’s Ben.
The more time you spend with a person the harder it is to see all of the things that make them who they are.
The more you learn about them and see who they really are, the harder it becomes to pinpoint all the little qualities that make them lovable.
You simply love them because they are.
Marriage has opened to me a depth of love that I hadn’t known possible and in doing so made known to me a depth of God I had yet to understand.
A God who loves wholly and without conditions.
God doesn’t love us because we are capable or holy. He doesn’t love us because of our looks or our sense of humor.
There is nothing we can say, do, or have to earn more of His love and affection.
He loves us because we are.
