Plant Love to Find Love

Moving from the Pacific Northwest to Houston, Texas meant learning how to run in humidity. Growing up as a Seattle boy, I knew how to run in all kinds of rain (and had three different raincoats for three different types of rain). But you can’t dress for humidity. All you can do is suffer.  

On a ninety-nine (literally) percent humidity day, it felt like I weighed twenty-five pounds more than I did and that I was breathing with half a lung. The first three miles were painful. I still had three more to go, so I decided to do something counter-intuitive: I picked up the pace.

I decided that if I was going to be miserable, I should at least be miserable while getting in a higher quality workout rather than merely slogging through another three miles. At the end, I felt exhilarated, encouraged that I actually got in a rather high-quality run.

Some of you may face a situation in your marriage in which you feel like you’re living in ninety-nine percent humidity. You’re just “slogging through.”  The miles are slow, painful, and sluggish. It feels awful. You can keep plodding, or…you can pick up the pace.

How do you do that?

One of the great classic Christian writers wrote, “Where you lack love, plant love, and you will find love.” By “picking up the pace” I mean, plant love. Do something extraordinary for your spouse even as you are disappointed in him or her. Pray for them more than you normally do. Speak kind words. Encourage him/her. Ask God how you can serve them this very day.

Violet learned this principle at a young age. Her mom was frequently ill and much of the housework fell on her. But Violet never cleaned anything “right” or put things away in the right place. Her mom could be vicious with criticism. Finally, at the end of a long day of being criticized half a dozen times and generally being at odds with each other, Violet looked at her mom lying on the couch and said three words she hadn’t heard her mom say in years: “I love you.”

If Violet had yelled at her mom, her mom would have yelled back. But “planting love” broke through to her mom, who said, “I’m so sorry honey. I don’t deserve you. I love you, too.”

When Violet grew up and got married and her husband seemed too busy to notice her and too frustrated to appreciate her, she decided to “plant some love.” She told her husband she wanted a two-hour lunch date. He grudgingly agreed. When she picked him up, she drove him to a hotel instead of a restaurant, and when he saw the new lingerie she was wearing under her dress, he felt like a total fool for acting like agreeing to the long lunch date had been doing her a “favor.”

That two-hour date changed the course of their marriage for the next several months.

Aaron’s wife Anna was so busy with the kids that he felt like a complete after-thought. Anna worked out of their home and never had enough time. Aaron felt slighted (because he was), and a common refrain he kept hearing from his wife was frustration over their home Wi-Fi signal, which kept dropping and interrupting Anna’s work. He talked to a tech guy at work, hired him to come over on a Saturday, and put in an entirely new system that was far more reliable.

When he came home the next Monday, his wife hugged him at the door. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said. It was the first time in months she had touched him as he got home from work instead of launching into a diatribe about which kid (or repair) needed his attention. Aaron planted love, right when he felt most slighted, and found love.

I’m not suggesting or promising that this will work in every marriage and every situation. But learning to “plant love” when you need love is worth a try. If you feel like you’ve been “married in humidity” for far too long, don’t just keep plodding along; pick up the pace. Love extravagantly. It may not change your spouse, but it will change you. And that’s something.

Why “planting love” is worthwhile even if it doesn’t “work”

When we’re disappointed in a spouse, it’s easy to forget that God wants to work on both of us. It’s rarely the case that one spouse is entirely wrong and the other spouse is entirely right. And even in the extremely rare circumstances when this might be true, we’re still responsible to respond in a holy way even to unholy behavior: “Now finally, all of you should be like-minded and sympathetic, should love believers, and be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you can inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:8-9).

Planting love is how we “give a blessing” in the face of disappointment or letdown. Even if this strategy doesn’t improve your marriage, it’ll improve you—and that’s a win! You’ll be an obedient son or daughter who honors your Heavenly Father.  In God’s economy, learning how to plant love where we need love, regardless of whether it “works,” makes complete spiritual sense.