Last night, I was watching the third season of the TV show Friends while I did some cleaning around my room (Yes I still watch Friends hehe). The second episode where no one was ready for Ross' event caught my attention as I worked. Ross had been irritable because he had an important event to attend and no one was ready. Everyone, including his precious Rachel, seemed to be occupied with something else. In his irritation, he had yelled at her, and she, in turn, decided she was not interested in attending his event anymore.
To show how sorry he was, and how much she meant to him, he asked her what she wanted him to do. She said he had to drink a glass of rendered chicken fat (yea... downright disgusting). He lifted the glass from the table, affirmed himself with a repetitive sentence, and proceeded to drink chicken fat! But he didn't...because she stopped him on time.
That episode made me think about the genuineness of the love we proclaim we have for others. Very often, many of us ask our spouses to do things to prove their love for us - things that are sometimes very uncomfortable for them, and we watch them go out of their way to do these things... sadly without intervening to stop them just in time. It makes me wonder...how genuine is that love that does not stop others from doing things that will break them, especially if those things are not necessarily attached to the success of the relationship?
As Friends played on in the background, I immediately remembered the story of Abraham, and how God had asked him to sacrifice Isaac to him. Just in time, God stepped in to stop Abraham from killing Isaac, and instead provided a lamb in Isaac's place. It made me realize that we test people to prove their love for us by doing things that make them uncomfortable, but our love for them is proven when we step in and stop them just in time because we realize that they will indeed go the extra mile for us, but we don't have to make them do so when it is unnecessary.
The beauty of true love lies in that reciprocity that even when they are ready to sacrifice themselves to prove they love us, we should be willing to step up and stop them, hence proving our love for them is also true. Watching them die silently in self-sacrifice makes for a good ego massage, but is nothing short of selfishness. XOXO
No comments:
Post a Comment