Labor of Love

​Every year we celebrate Labor Day in early September. It is a time to remember the common laborer and the work that helps keep our country going and to give a day of rest from our labor. For me, however, early September always reminds me of love because this is when I was married at the wise old age of 18. Every fall the themes of love and labor seem to weave their way into my heart and mind. 

Bonnie Piovesan

​I come from a long line of broken relationships and failed marriages. Like many a young person I entered my marriage convinced that my deep love for my husband would guard us from all of the worldly hurts and ensure our marriage was one that lasted. I simply forgot that we were both human.

It was not too long before the world came crashing into our little newlywed paradise. Our personal baggage and bad habits were suddenly on display 24/7 for another person who never seemed to leave. Our well-meaning but strongly opinionated families were quick to remind us of the obvious. Our hot tempers and need to be right combined with no money, no jobs, and no car meant lots of cozy evenings at home. Add in a few cross-country moves and a premature baby and well, there were times I wondered if love was enough after all.

It was in this place two Septembers into my marriage that I realized something was missing from my love equation, work. I was raised to believe that love was what kept people together. If someone loved you enough, they would stay. No one ever talked about working out that love and what it took day in and day out to actually love another fallen human. No one really talked about how to teach someone else how to love me the right way. Because work had never been part of the conversation my first inclination was to do what I had been taught, run. The problem with this was that I knew running would only bring another kind of hurt, and I was really tired of hurting.

I decided to do things differently. I made up my mind to work out of love. This became my purpose and mission, to love another person out of my love for Christ. This meant that I would love the other person because I loved Christ and because Christ loves me, I was to be treated with love as well. I had to learn what love meant to me and how the other person received love. I had to toss out some bad lessons and find new teachers. I had to face my past and learn to have some hope for my future. This was indeed a hard, often humbling labor of love.

I would love to say that this labor was a beautiful partnership of two young people working things out. The truth was that it was a labor of one human and a loving ever-present Savior. For a time, the only person I could really lean on was Jesus. My family with their long history of cut and run could not understand my mission. Since I was a young bride, my peers were mostly still single. Some of my personal hurts had trained me to be guarded. My misunderstandings of what a good Christian should be kept me smiling on the surface and alone on the inside. This is where Jesus decided to do things differently.

Jesus began again with a new labor of love with me. Suddenly it seemed I found new friends who were a bit older and had been through these waters. We landed in a good church family that understood the mission of loving others. It seemed like excellent books were suddenly available to help me learn what being a child of God was all about. Jesus began tearing open some of my baggage and asking me to consider healing.  Jesus put some distance between me and the strong opinions of my family so I could hear His voice a little more clearly. I imagine at times Jesus felt He was the only one working on the relationship, and yet His labor continued. 

Over the years, labor and love have intertwined in so many wonderful ways. As I work out love in my human relationships, God has been faithful to work out His love in our relationship. There have been many times that my human relationships have not gone the way I would have hoped, and yet somehow God is still there loving all of us. I would love to say that I am always loving to others, but the truth is God is the one who is always loving and I am still working on it.

​In His Name, Bonnie