Love is a choice... 'for better, for worse'

I am waiting for the wedding to start. The bride is five minutes late; her mother is already crying. The best man has been checking for the past ten minutes that he still has the ring. The groom is trying to look cool, as if he does this most days of the week, and is sweating profusely. But suddenly the music starts and we are asked to stand.

I don't recall exactly how many weddings I've been to, but I can't remember one bride who did not look amazing, or a single groom who did not, at least, look better than he's ever looked. We sing a hymn: "Love divine, all loves excelling. Joy of heaven to earth come down". Women turn and whisper to their husbands, "This was one of our wedding hymns." The men smile and nod - it seems the safest thing to do.

But then come the vows and it strikes me that these promises dare to invade this idyllic day with warnings of more difficult times. He says, "I will love you if we are rich"; the vow whispers, "But what if you are poor?" She promises, "I will love you for better... and for worse." He says, "I will love you if you are well and... in sickness too."

Will those vows ever be called in? Yes, they will - but the couple do not know that now. And then something from the Bible is read: "Love is patient, love is kind ... Love is not self-seeking ... Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes ... Love is..." Yes, love is all those things. But the young couple do not know that yet either. On this most perfect of days they cannot know yet that love is not just a feeling, but a daily commitment to love in action - to love sometimes not just with the heart but with the will.

A terrible wasting disease

But David knows it. He was married to Beth for almost thirty years, the last ten of them watching her die slowly with a terrible wasting disease. He has lifted her, washed her, and fed her; he has kissed her and held her all through those long years of sickness. It was not what he expected when he made his vows, all those years ago.

Yes, David had feelings of love for his wife, but this love was deeper than feeling. This was sacrificial love that decided to love when at times it seemed too great a burden to go on loving. This was love that in some ways laid down its life for another.

"I don't feel in love any more"

I spoke recently with a man who was leaving his wife and two young children for somebody younger who he said would better fulfil his needs. I asked, "Why are you leaving?" He said, "I don't feel in love anymore."

I treated him with dignity and with care, knowing full well the frailty of my own heart. But even as he was speaking, there was, in the back of my mind, an image of a man carefully feeding his wife and gently wiping the spilt food from her lips.

Rob Parsons