love actually... is sacrifice.

in the midst of my deep isolation (thank you wheaton college), i watched love actually for the first time. true, it is not even close to christmas and i am in no hurry to usher the holiday season in, but i had heard so much about this movie that i felt some pressing to need to watch it.

it was a good movie, but i was not particularly moved by it. most of it was hard to understand exactly. but maybe that was the fever working against me...or the heavy accents. whatever the reason, i was lost for about half of it.

basically, it is a series of several love stories all hinged on the fact that it was christmas. something was in the air that made all of these characters reach out for outlandish hopes, and somehow magically attain all that their hearts desired. one girl even managed to woo the prime minister, played by the very dashing and lovable hugh grant.

don't get me wrong, please. i didn't hate it. in fact, i wouldn't mind owning it and watching it again. but i thought it had some interesting things to say about love.

what's sad to me, is that only two our of the... gosh, eight (?) stories showed real love. sure, the others were fun to watch, and i would be lying to say that i wasn't tempted to want that for myself. but those passionate, sweep-me-up-into-your-arms moments aren't real love. love is sacrifice. i think we can see that through Jesus, and the ultimate love he showed by dying on the cross, not to be cliche or anything.

i loved that sarah sacrificed her passionate and long awaited relationship attempt with ben to continue adequately loving her mentally ill brother.

and i loved that henry chose to stay with his wife. and i guess kiera knightley's character did that too. sacrificing seemingly easier relationships, for the ones that are true and real. because real love isn't easy. and yes it can be passionate at times, but real love lasts when the passion dies.

i guess these past couple of days i have been processing real love and what it looks like. what it feels like, even. and i have found that love is often not exactly what you want to do all the time. it's admitting you're wrong when you want to be right. it's stepping down when you want to stand up. it's allowing yourself to break when you really want to be whole. and sometimes, i think, it's saying goodbye when you wish you could say hello.

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends"

John 15:13