****Make sure to read Part 1-8 (Tab on right labeled "Secrets of True Love" )before reading this part****

Chapter Nine

"Love Means Looking

out for Others"

The tears began to come to my eyes. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt as if our relationship was crumbling.

"I don't understand," kept going through my mind. Here I was alone not knowing anyone, and needing someone to help me get to know others. Instead, he wanted to hang out with the guys and participate in fun activities. I felt also, as if I was missing out, abandoned and not cared about. Another major key in understanding love is:

"...not merely look out for your own personal interests,

but also for the interests of others." Philippians 2:4

Love means not giving up. I don't think we have ever fought. We have had disagreements, we have felt hurt by the other, but we have not left each other without resolving it the best we can for that moment.

I look back one particular night and remember thinking of just wanting to dissolve our relationship and just give up. But I knew deep down I loved him, and I knew that he loved me. You can't just give up on things. If so people would be stuck in a rut and not go anywhere in life. I knew I had to give up feeling sorry for myself. Thinking that I never had any fun. I was wrong. What I needed was to be thanking God for what I did have and for what He had blessed me with. I knew that one of the key things to keep a relationship moving ahead was not just thinking of myself, but sacrifice for the other, putting the other above myself, and treating them the way they would want to be treated. We both in someway were not truly putting the other before ourselves. This is hard to do. Our sinful nature always wants it our way. But by the help of God we can overcome and begin looking out for the best interest of the other. That night I grew to love him more then before. The pain that I felt began to disappear being replaced with the growing love I had gained.

"The best thing about loving and being hurt

is that you get to know what true love really is.

For as gold is testing in fire,

and so will love be perfected in pain."

Marvin Jay M. Torres

I didn't realize it till later, we had grown closer from the experience. God has a purpose for everything. Whether or not we see it right away you will know that there was some reason for what God did.

...To be Continued next Wednesday