I can imagine what you are thinking as you read that title – “well duh, of course I have been in love.”  I realize that.  We have been in love with our – 1st grade teacher, the red-headed girl on the playground, the new student sitting across from us in our freshman college class, or the attractive out-going co-worker.  Most all have experienced those stomach butterflies, the sweaty palms, or the tingles up our spine.  We have been in love.

That was an easy question with an easy answer.  But let me ask you a little tougher question – Do you know how to love?  Hmm.  That one makes us ponder a little more.  Fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg made the following statement – “I have been in love many times, but I know now that being in love does not always mean you know how to love.”  What a revealing statement that is also probably true of most of us.

Feeling goose bumps when someone walks into a room is easy.  Getting chicken soup for your crabby spouse, who looks like a train wreck, in bed, while fighting the flu – now that is another matter.  But that is a much more realistic picture of what love looks like.  When we said, “I do” for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health – we vowed to “love” because it is not nearly as easy.

Whether your mate is sick or whether he or she is simply biting your head after a difficult day, “love” is required.  It is easy to recall moments of “in love.”  Yet I wonder how readily we remember difficult times when we simply “loved?”  Here is an opportunity – the next time your spouse is less than pleasant, I encourage you to practice “love.”