Love Takes Time} Part One

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, or Good Evening, 

this post should take approximately four to seven minutes to read from start to finish.

I would like to ask you the following two questions, you may or may not ask yourself and answer the following questions either now or in your own time. What is your definition on true love? Do you believe that love takes time?

This post is based on October 1975 General Conference talk and it is called, "Love Takes Time" by Marvin J. Ashton. This is part one. I have enjoyed reading the talk, I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk and I hope you will learn something new. 

Marvin have mentioned the following; "True love is a process. True love requires personal action. Love must be continuing to be real. Love takes time. Too often expediency, infatuation, stimulation, persuasion, or lust are mistaken for love. How hollow, how empty if our love is no deeper than the arousal of momentary feeling or the expression in words of what is no more lasting than the time it takes to speak them.

A group of college students recently indicated to me their least favorite expression to come from us as the older set is, “If there is ever anything I can do to help you, please let me know.” They, as do others, much prefer actions over conversation. We must at regular and appropriate intervals speak and reassure others of our love and the long time it takes to prove it by our actions. Real love does take time.

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and
know we cannot live within." - James Baldwin.

.. Love demands action if it is to be continuing. Love is a process. Love is not a declaration. Love is not an announcement. Love is not a passing fancy. Love is not an expediency. Love is not a convenience. From another boy a few years older, old enough to be confined in a state penitentiary a few hundred miles from here, we can learn more about the process of love. In his moving letter, just received within the past few days, he makes an effort to analyze what led to his present situation and all of the accompanying agonies.

He writes, “My dad never seemed to love me and yet he made big deals of saying ‘I love you’ and kissing and all, but I learned that ‘I love you’ meant you didn’t have to do anything. I mean we were never forced to do chores regularly, given no morals, spiritual training at all. To this very day I don’t know what principles my parents stand for.” From this friend, whom I have never met, may I share again the one phrase, “‘I love you’ meant you didn’t have to do anything.” I refer to him as a friend because he has given me his helpful thoughts and I share these comments with you on this occasion hoping they might be helpful to you too.

From the father’s viewpoint can’t he be credited with feeding and keeping?  Perhaps he had kept the family adequately stocked with food supplies. Also, hadn’t his son been the beneficiary of having a roof over his head, protected from the elements day and night over the years? In responding, I would point out to this mother and father and others that feeding is more than providing food. No man can effectively live by bread alone. Feeding is the providing by love adequate nourishment for the entire man, physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. Keeping is a process of care, consideration, and kindness appropriately blended with discipline, example, and concern. Keeping is more than providing four walls and a roof. All of us need to be constantly reminded it takes a heap of living and loving to make a house a home."

Stay Tuned until next time.