Loving Ourselves for Others

Let’s work on ourselves for each other.

My younger brother taught me something priceless about love recently. 

13+ months after not seeing his girlfriend because of COVID, I was empathizing with him over the phone about how difficult that must have been. As someone who lives with her boyfriend, I couldn’t even imagine. 

Little did I know that the role I thought I was playing as the supportive older sister would soon turn into the humbled student. 

While my brother didn’t deny that the long-distance relationship experience overall has been a challenging one, he brought in the perspective of a true warrior. “Yeah, it has been tough,” he admitted, “but I do my best to acknowledge how hard it is while looking at the bigger picture. It’s like that Jim Rohn quotation, you know? We just have to trust the process.” And he proceeded to send me the image above. 

I was speechless. What maturity. 

While the situation itself was outside of his control, my brother was choosing his perspective on the situation. It was true that it had been over a year since my brother and his girlfriend had seen each other in person, and they barely had over an hour or two each week to talk to each other on the phone. But it was also true that they both had a lot going on in their lives right now, even without each other.

He got to choose which truth he wanted to put his energy into. Instead of being stuck in the frustration of circumstances that they couldn’t change, both my brother and his girlfriend were doing their best to use the situation as an opportunity: let’s work on ourselves for each other while we are apart so that it benefits our relationship when we’re eventually back together. Let’s allow ourselves to feel the sadness and frustration in order to move past it with resilience.

Resilient love is willing to play the long game because it believes in the bigger picture.

Like it says in 1 Corinthians 13, cheers to the kind of love that always trusts, the kind of love that always hopes, the kind of love that always perseveres. 

That’s the kind of love that never fails.  

I’m happy to share that after 14 months, my brother and his girlfriend have been able to see each other in person, and they’re still going strong! <3 

Interested in cultivating this type of love in your own life? Let’s chat!