agape

because i don't know how to say what i have to say and because this opened my eyes.

read it or don't. it's long, i know.

"The woman says in Song of Songs, 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.' She speaks a paradox. Two things are going on here. She's giving. Giving herself away. Letting go. Losing herself in her lover. And yet she's also getting something in return: the other person. Her lover, at the same time, has let go and fallen into her. There is something about losing yourself to another and their losing themselves to you at the same time that defies our ability to categorize. Healthy marriages all have this sense of mutual abandon to each other. They've both jumped, in essence, into the arms of the other. There is a sense of mutual abandont between them. If one holds back, if one refrains, it doesn't work.
But this paradox of mutual submission is only one of the profound things going on in this passage. The command to the husband is to love your wife 'just as Christ loved the church.' On the first pass, it seems quite straightforward. But as we've seen before, words in the Bible are often loaded. In this case, the word love in the Greek language is a specific kind of love.
The word for love here is the word agape.
So the man is to love the woman, to agape her, like God agapes the world.
Agape is a particular kind of love. Love is often seen as a need, something we get from others. Agape is the opposite. Agape gives.
Agape.
Imagine a wife whose husband isn't the man she wishes he was. He lets her down, again and again and again. She begins to withdraw, to retreat, and to hold his failures against him. If they are even capable of discussing the problems between them, often she will have a list of things she wishes he did. And so this puts him in an awkward position. If he does the things on the list, she won't know why he's doing them. Because it just comes naturally? Or because he's trying to score points with her? From her perspective, his motives are unclear. And so she develops a scorecard, usually subconsciously.
If he's good, she comes near, but if he fails, she stays at a distance. Her affection, her actions, and ultimately her love become conditional. Not agape.

Agape doesn't love somebody because they're worthy
Agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love.
Agape doesn't love somebody because they're beautiful.
Agape loves in such a way that makes them beautiful.

There is a love because, love in order to, love for the purpose of, and then there is love, period. Agape doesn't need a reason."