my big brothers

I have two brothers and they have totally opposite personalities. One is a free spirit, the other is a control freak. One promiscuous, the other chokingly loyal. The elder is quite liberal while the other one is strongly conservative. One loves to explore, the other stays at home. Even their cognitive abilities are on opposite ends. Maybe this is because we grew up with an absent father. We got no one to look up to for a model and so we sought it from different people. The elder found his from his friends’ family whom he spent most of his time with in his formative years, while the second who hardly gets out of the house, had his from my mother. I’m more of in between. Yet in spite of our personality differences I look up to them with great admiration and respect especially on how they have loved.

Ironically, both of their marriages are on shaky grounds at the moment. They both decided to live separately from their families.

As I see them struggle to get a grip of their situations I could not help but get affected as well. My heart bleeds for them. But there is such a thing as necessary pain, and what they are undergoing right now qualifies as such. I have strong faith that they would come out of it renewed.

You see, both of my brothers’ love lives did not have the blessings from my father when it started. Funny coz of all people, my father should know how terrible such was, considering he had the same experience with my mother’s parents. But that’s a whole new story.

back to my brothers. Their love stories started with so much drama. The elder one was almost punched by his father in-law on his wedding day because none from our family showed up. The second brother, on the other hand, went as far as challenging my father to a fist fight and even threatens to kill him just so the latter would not stop his planned wedding. It was even my uncle, not my father, who formally asked the hands of my sister in-law from her family. No doubt, whatever level of maturity they had and even if their motives were not so pure, the decision to get married is itself a very concrete and bold act of love. And for that I envied both of them.

when God calls His people to love, he purifies them. It would be a lie to say that both my brothers and their wives got into marriage with a pure heart. But I think that is the whole point of commitment, as the couples live together and realize their selfishness, their intentions to love gets purified as they continue to embrace each other not only because of but despite each other’s imperfections.

easier said than done. That I know. In reality feelings get wounded, spirits get broken and hearts get tired.

Yet, absurd as it may be, being broken is the essence of loving. It’s what gives meaning to the act itself. It’s a necessary pain. I mean it’s easy to love the perfect partner, but to love the person who doesn’t deserve it is divine.

So be broken, if they may. It pains to see them hurting, but even the butterfly needs to undergo the painful process of metamorphosis before it can spread its wings and fly.So goes with love and loving, sometimes a pause is what they need to learn to forgive each other, let go of bad memories, and purify their intentions. So that if and when they renew their vows with each other and with God, they’ll be better lovers.

As for me, I’m learning.