About Time

Over the weekend, I was invited to a classmate’s wedding; and besides the fact that I was sick and bedridden throughout the weekend, I really did not want to attend. A couple of weeks prior, when I was informed about the wedding, I gave a resounding “no” as my response. But a young lady said to me, “If you don’t attend someone’s wedding, no one will attend yours.” It was true and I was okay with it. If no one came to my wedding, I’ll have my bride, my best man, our families and that will be enough. Everyone else would be appreciated but I would want them to be there for the mere reason that they want to, and not because I attended their wedding. I love marriage, and hope to tie my knot in the not so distant future with a certain special someone when I finally meet her, but I am not a big fan of wedding events. Personally, I think that weddings are overrated. The cure for love is marriage and the cure for marriage is love again. I think that weddings should be true, intimate and full of nothing but love. That feeling of beauty should come from desire and passion and not just expensive wedding gowns and the exquisite china used at the reception. If that is where your beauty comes from, that’s okay too. I actually think that you should have the best cake though. Because cake is cake and a great cake can make you forget all your troubles. In a movie I watched yesterday, the bride wore a red dress at her wedding and I thought that it was simply amazing. Truth is, if you wore a red dress to your own wedding in Ghana. First line of thought, “Oh, my son is marrying a witch…” I guarantee it. That is beside the point but the subject of reciprocity is always used when it comes to weddings. And it applies to basically everything we do.

First: attend a wedding because you want to, because you care, and you want to share in their happiness. Not for the main course meal, or the drinks or the cake. Acts of love, care, should come from a place of love and not from a place of reciprocity. We love, because we love; and not because we are loved in return. In what ways have we loved God for loving God since He loved us? Loving God should be easier because He does not change. And we have failed terrible in that department. I know I have.

People argue that there are different kinds of love. This is true but love is still required for the other kinds of love. The common denominator is LOVE.

Let’s face it: Life is hard and people do not always return the liberties they take.Show by hands if you did everything right and the guy/girl did not choose you? I bet a lot of hands are going up right about now. Did we still love them after they chose someone else? |Hell to the no! I am sorry. What? You still want us to be friends? Is your friendship supposed to be a consolation prize?| Show by hands if you have ever felt like that? Good! That is absolutely normal. You put yourself out there and you crash landed. It must have hurt terribly. I know, I have been there. Maybe I did not hurt like you for the mere reason that I have a titanium heart, but I felt the impact and that is similar. I do not want to be sagacious, but I want you to understand that loving someone is not about you; it is about the other person. You have to understand that you can do all the right things and still be the wrong person for someone. And you should learn to be okay with that. I speak on the subject because we do things with unflinching expectations of returns. This is not business, this is personal. You will argue that there is no fun in that, but you must understand that if you want to be a better person, it should be about you and not the other person. You develop a giving heart because you give a loving heart because you love. These are the times that try men’s souls. People take a 180 turn for others because they are in ‘love’ with someone, eventually when that ‘love’ dies down- and it will- you will have nothing but your old self, with a broken heart, time wasted, no self-improvement, and you are back to square one except you are two years, six months, half a decade, older. It’s better to grow and be ready.