Defining Love

The movie mentioned is The Lake House released in 2006,
The Church Website is riverrockfl.com


Discover the profound essence of love as I join forces with Pastor Chris, delving into its spiritual dimensions and daily expressions. We'll unpack the biblical definition, shedding light on how our cultural and emotional frameworks often constrain our perception. Pastor Chris shares enlightening wisdom from the scriptures, while I offer anecdotes and pragmatic advice on fostering a healthy balance between giving and receiving love, ensuring that our relationships flourish.

The lost art of love letter writing is revived in our heartfelt discussion, revealing how this simple act can reignite passion and forge deeper bonds between couples. We share touching stories of six pairs who found renewed connection through penning their feelings. Alongside this, we explore the importance of gratitude and small gestures that keep the embers of love alight. Join us as we emphasize the need for consistent effort and appreciation in maintaining the warmth and vigor of romantic relationships.

As we conclude, we reflect on the nature of enduring love, the kind that withstands the test of time and mirrors the steadfast love God has for us. From children's candid love letters brimming with innocence to the ways we can apply love's virtues in our daily lives, we celebrate the importance of expressing love to all our dear ones. So, lend us your ears and be prepared to be inspired by divine love, while embracing the joy of loving and being loved in all aspects of life.

Transcript

Renee Richel: 0:07

Hi, I'm Renee Richel, the founder and president of 1 True Match. I'm here to help you find and cultivate the love of your life. For over a decade, I've dedicated my life to the importance, purpose and dynamic of human relationships. My team and I are disciplined by faith, love and integrity to help our clients find the quality relationship they've always dreamt of. Each week, I will be sharing the tools and tips I've learned that have rooted my success as a matchmaker with other leaders around the world. Hello, loves, welcome back for this special edition prior to the big Valentine's Day season.

Renee Richel: 0:48

I'm going to call it coming up that we are so excited to have Pastor Chris back talking about a topic that is obviously all about love that he had preached a week or two ago and I love it that he's still preaching about it that I had to share with all of you, and I also want to talk very candidly about some personal love letter writing, that experiences from our clients that are still happily matched today, that we tried and experiment out, plus a little bit of Chris's story of love letter writing and even other children that we've collected love letters from. So welcome. We are going to begin and I cannot wait and I'm so excited that you're here, chris. Say hello to everyone.

Pastor chris: 1:31

Hey everybody. It's so great to see all of you all again. Thank you for inviting me, renee Wonderful, to be here, as always, so thank you.

Renee Richel: 1:38

Yeah. So I want to start off and I'm going to pull up my little notes that I always tell everybody. I love that you guys present every week so that we can remember to go back to our notes, because we hear things every Sunday, right, or whenever we're at church, but we kind of forget about them. So the one thing that I love that you talked about and started it was defining love. So can you tell everybody a little bit what that means and, definitely biblically, what God has that defined?

Pastor chris: 2:01

as, yeah, absolutely, Renee. So when you look at the definition of what love is, we have all these kind of thoughts throughout our culture and society. In fact, if I were to ask you what love is and then give you my definition, they'd probably be a little bit different, but similar. The Bible's pretty clear In 1 John 4, it says God is love. So God didn't create love. It's not an emotion that's just been given to us. God, by definition, is love. So that changes everything. Right, it's not a society thought of, hey, a feeling or some kind of emotion that we have. It's actually who God is. So let's put all that in motion, right.

Pastor chris: 2:37

1 Corinthians 13 just shares this love chapter Many folks that get married or whatever it's a passage that's in their wedding. I do many weddings and that's one of the ones that we're always doing. But he talks about love as patient. Right, it's long suffering. It means I'm with you all through everything. It's kind, which means hey, it's considered. It values the other person more than self. It doesn't envy. In other words, it's not about a jealousy that, hey, I don't want to see you with someone else or whatever. I love you so much that I'm going to stay along with you and I'm going to hold you. I'm going to protect you, going to keep you secure. It talks about not being easily angered, which means it's not. Love isn't irritable, it's not easily triggered is really the word. So there's just this whole list of things that tries to describe love, but in the end, really describing who God is.

Renee Richel: 3:32

And one of the things that I know I think is so important for a lot of our clients that we talk about is, I always say if you can't love yourself and others the way that you would want to be loved, right, it's a give and take in a relationship In God. In biblical he says love others the way that you would love yourself, right. And so one of the tools nuggets that you gave us was love is not getting from others. So can you go in a little bit more detail?

Pastor chris: 4:07

I mean, we always talk about selfless love right.

Pastor chris: 4:09

But what does that mean? I mean, does it mean that I'm sacrificing everything in my life to the point that I am just in the ditch of everything and I have no clothes? I have no, no, that's not exactly it. What it means is that, hey, I am valuing the other person more than myself. I'm doing everything I can to lift that person up.

Pastor chris: 4:28

And it comes back to that whole idea of the marriage relationship too. That's in Ephesians and Colossians where it talks about hey, why have I submit to your husbands? We kind of hate that verse. So why is your to submit to be under the authority of your husband? But it doesn't stop there, right, it says husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. Well, what does that mean? Well, wives, yeah, I'm submitting to my husband. But, husbands, I'm loving my wife to the point that I'm building her up. I'm submitting to her and her wishes, her dreams, her desires.

Pastor chris: 4:57

So that's what love is. Is this constant competition of who can outlove and out serve the other. You're not degrading yourself, but you're pushing the other person up, you're elevating the other. And in a true love kind of relationship, that's exactly what you're doing. You're elevating the other. And if you're constantly doing that with each other in that relationship, then your relationship is only going to grow and thrive. The problem comes is that when one person does all the submitting and the loving you and the other person doesn't, and there's this open space and gap where, hey, I'm valuing you so much but you're not valuing me, this gap begins to appear and all of a sudden, that's where bitterness and jealousy and anger and frustration all those things we don't want in a relationship start to enter in. And, before you know, that gap becomes so hard that now we begin to lose interest in one another, we begin to fall away from each other, and that's the opposite of what love really is.

Renee Richel: 5:57

I could not agree more because I think so many times when people will say, where are all the good people in this world? Right, as Christian matchmaker, trying to find, obviously, people in their singleness and introducing them to the love of their life, but also working with our couples right and continuing that love is one thing you also said is love drives everything when we are rooted in Christ.

Pastor chris: 6:21

Well, you think about it, Okay. So here's the equation If God equals love, God is love. That's first John 4, 16 or 412, says it several times. Then the equation is that hey, what drove God to do what he did for us, to love us with everything, sacrificing everything that he had to come, even his life on the cross? Right, he says hey, not only do I want you to experience that, I want you to be able to express that, and so that's why he gave us the ability to experience love, but also show love.

Pastor chris: 6:53

So with that, you're kind of talking about hey, now this has to drive everything that we do, because it drove everything that God did. The reason that God loves us, or allows the things, blesses us in the way that he does, is because it's all driven by that love. He rescued us, not came here to punish us or judge us. He came to actually rescue us out of love. So the same motivation if God is love and we have God dwelling within us, he wants us to show that, to help. As the driving force behind everything we do, it has to be love. That's his plan, that's his design.

Renee Richel: 7:30

Right, like you say, all the time, love has to build you up right, just like we want in a mate. So, as we're going into this season of love, which should be every day, not just one day that everybody puts this pressure on and I hear from them why is?

Renee Richel: 7:46

it always about me. Why am I the one who has to do all the details for love on Valentine's Day? And it should be an equal thing, obviously. But if you're out there and you're looking for this great love, ask yourself how in love do you know God's love first inside of you, to be able to pour that out to the world, to also emulate that same level of love back? And that's what. Half the time when we work with our singles, you know everybody truly. When they come to us and they're investing their heart, motion, minds, finance, like into us, they believe in us. It's so important. The one thing that I say is priceless If you don't believe in yourself, that comes through God, it's never going to work out. And then I want to say the other thing too. You said love is revealed through Jesus, which is exactly what we're talking about.

Pastor chris: 8:40

So if you take 1 Corinthians 13, where it says love is patient, love is kind, it doesn't envy. If you replace the word love with Jesus, because God is love, so it's a, you know, it's a state of being, verb right. So Jesus is patient, jesus is long suffering, jesus is not envious, jesus is not, you know, all of those things can fit in line. And that's exactly what we look to when we see God. We emulate what God did for us, for others. Now, granted, I can't save you from your sins or any of that. Right, I'm not, you know, I'm sacrificing my life so that you could live eternally with God. No, that's what Jesus did ultimately.

Pastor chris: 9:13

But it is up to us to value others to the point that we're willing to sacrifice. And it's this whole cycle of love. When you begin to sacrifice and value others ahead of yourself, then you begin to see the blessing and the honor that comes with that and see how that plays itself out, where actually you're the one that may be sacrificing but you're also the one that's receiving the blessing from it. It's a whole cycle. That's really cool and it's God's definition. It's God's defining moment and living it out, you see it.

Renee Richel: 9:43

Yeah, no, I love it. And what I love about every sermon that you do is you close out with thinking like a thoughtful question to make us all leave and really process, reflect and, you know, figure out going into the week and just going into our life, how are we going to live a different way? And one of his closing questions was is God's love being revealed through?

Pastor chris: 10:05

you? How does it happen? So are you actually recognizing it, renee? I take it back to. My wife and I were still in love after 22 years and just continue to grow in that love. But one of the things that we did about four or five years ago, I bought one of those little. You put the letters on it that lights up behind. I don't even know what it's called, but it was a light that comes on. It's like a marquee sign.

Renee Richel: 10:28

Got it.

Pastor chris: 10:29

There you go. I bought a little marquee and I put it in our bathroom and so every once in a while we change up the letters on there so cute and we write ourself a one little sentence. You know it takes a long time to do it, but we write a little one sentence love note back to one another and there's a little emojis that came with it. And so one of the cool things that my wife, the little things that happen, is that every once in a while that marquee will change and it'll be some kind of encouraging note and it's the same for me. I'll take the letters out and I'll eventually put something else in there and put the light on. So she knows it's new right, and it's always an encouraging thing for us as we look forward to what's ahead. My wife has written me love notes and she's stuck them on the steering wheel of my car.

Renee Richel: 11:07

Mary, I love those little things.

Pastor chris: 11:08

I love them in the morning. It's those kind of things that, hey, sometimes we take it for granted or we don't notice the things Right, but that's kind of what God does for us. There's so many times when we just don't even notice or take time to say thank you for.

Renee Richel: 11:22

I see it Show gratitude for someone's love. That yeah, it definitely, and that's the other thing is love I always say is it's easy to fall in love. It's it's. It takes a lot of effort to keep love. And so many times, people, what happens is puppy love is always great for the first year or two You're right. But then what happens is everybody starts to get comfortable and lazy.

Pastor chris: 11:43

It's easy to fall in love, but it's also easy to fall out of love, right, right so.

Renee Richel: 11:47

Work it takes work so it's important the things that you're doing in the beginning, that's, you know your spotlight right, you're showing off your best version of yourself, but also don't overdo it where you can't keep up with it. So one thing that I was so excited that in a follow up sermon that Chris did so I'm encouraging you all to go to River Rock and go on the website, which we'll have in our show notes or whatever, but to listen to even the follow up service that he did on this is love, and he was then sharing love letters with, I think this one that we're talking about, but another one and I have to share for any of our audience viewers that don't know this but when I started the company over almost 15 years ago, when we were just doing research of like how people fall in love, why they choose, who they do and all this other stuff, we did an exercise with six of our couples and today it's almost funny that we're like starting to bring it back, because I feel like it was so powerful for those six couples and we chose six local clients at the time that our office is in a 1900s like Flagler, dutch, colonial, beautiful home, right, and I really wanted an office that would just have that personal touch, like back in the days of love and writing letters and things like that. And so we had six clients we chose locally to write love letters after they went through our course and they were totally equipped and ready with all the tools they needed to meet the right person, that we've interviewed hundreds of people for them to say, okay, this is the one we want you to meet. So before they ever even had conversation, they had to write at least four to six letters to each other. They literally wrote them, brought them to our 1900s, like mailbox, right it's amazing, it's still standing, it is still standing and drop off a love letter. And then they would text us when they did and we would let the other person know that, like, you've got mail in a form of a love letter in a mailbox, right. And we had actually everybody watch this one movie to kind of give them inspiration with Canary's and Sandra Bullock I'm trying to the name escapes me. We'll have to put that on the show notes too. But it was just to kind of give them this mindset of like, go back and go back to like this old fashioned way where you were excited to receive letters. So, and then they would exchange these letter and by the time they did their fourth or sixth one, haven had one of my clients say so, okay, so she loves chocolate. I found out, can I have drop off chocolate in the mailbox? They said, well, I mean, when are you going to drop it off, cause that might melt, you know, or things like that, especially being in Florida. But anyways, and all those couples today are still together and that is one thing that I love that they go back to and they're like we.

Renee Richel: 14:29

We got into a routine of doing that once a year or a couple of times a year, we write love letters and we talked about this in our office before coming up with this topic that we wanted to talk about and bringing you in, and John in my office was saying that he writes love letters to his two daughters. He's been doing it since they've been like 12 or 13 years old and he does it a couple of times a year, which inspired me when my daughter was born. I'm a little bit more. I lose things sometimes when it comes to paper form, so I started an email address for her when she was born and I try to, once a year at least write her a love letter that I'm hoping to give to her later on in life, when she can read, obviously. But enough about that. I also want to hear how the stories that you collected in the sermon that you shared and the love letters that you started with your lovely wife or bride forever right, absolutely.

Pastor chris: 15:17

So, if you remember, my wife and I we met at a summer camp, we were summer camp counselors, and then I ended up going off overseas after that two and a half months, and so I was in Scotland, she was in Kentucky. We wrote letters back and forth the internet was a little bit of a thing then, but just getting going but it was the letters that actually hey, here's, here's who I am, here's, here's the heart of who I am. It's not just the hey, how's the weather, how are things going, that's an email.

Renee Richel: 15:41

Right.

Pastor chris: 15:41

And the love letters are from from the heart. And so I mean I kept a lot of my love letters and even even now like 80 cents to mail it from the US to Scotland right Airmail. I can't even mail a letter here for that. But but so many of these kind of letters just just pouring the heart out of saying, hey, this is what I'm looking at, what's going to work for me. My wife actually did a little dating questionnaire.

Renee Richel: 16:03

Right, which I am going to pull up. I definitely want to pull this up.

Pastor chris: 16:06

That she filled out and she sent to me and just said hey, I just want you to know, here we are. This is this is what I think about who I'm looking for in a mate, and this is who I'm looking for, and, and without even putting you as the subject, how do we, how do we fit Right? And then the same thing. I answered her back with things that I wrote down, which you know. It's always pretty interesting to go back and look at which.

Renee Richel: 16:27

I hope I'm not. I want to pull this up. You gave me permission to do this because we do.

Renee Richel: 16:32

We go through this needs and wants analysis before anybody meets and we ask everybody to basically write their non-negotiables their would like to have what they find attractive about somebody and they also put down like their interests Right. And we go through this period before they actually meet that person to really think through the things that they know, going forward from the things that they've learned in the past, that they not only need for today but also in the future. Yeah, and so when we started coming up, or while I was doing all the research, going through, what questions do we ask? We ask a lot of premarital questions because those are things that, like, it's important to think about prior to meeting that person.

Pastor chris: 17:10

Right.

Renee Richel: 17:11

So you're genuinely being real, instead of doing it after you meet somebody. The challenge then is often like well, did I really answer it Because I really like them or did I answer it for me? Exactly? And I think some of these questions because they're very similar to the questions that we asked but what she was? I guess she, I don't know. If we don't know, if she Googled this, we're going to have to have her. You two on a podcast one of these days.

Renee Richel: 17:32

But one of her questions that I just thought was really adorable is what do you expect out of a dating relationship? And she wrote down, like her answers, which I think is adorable. Can I read?

Pastor chris: 17:44

these. I will tell you Lots of kissing.

Renee Richel: 17:48

This was obviously like you know, after all, the things right To me, that's honest. Oh, free shoulder massages I don't know if you were good at that or not, but and then, like, Grace was really important to her. And then some of the other questions was what do you desire most in a date? A future has been, and I mean she wrote down obviously a different, a lot of different things like patience, kindness, flexibility. She definitely is a very affectionate person. I won't read all of these like little things, but what you learned about the past experiences. So we always ask everybody tell us your relationship history, tell us your story.

Renee Richel: 18:27

Like what makes you who you are? What have you experienced? What have we learned? You know, a lot of times people when they say, well, either I haven't dated because I've been saving myself during singleness for somebody, I don't have a lot of dating experience, which a lot of people say, oh, that's a red flag. It's either one or the other. They have too much dating experience, that they have so much scar tissue build up right that we have to like release all of that and heal, or they don't have enough dating experience but I think a lot of it is they don't know how to like articulate what it is and who that is that they're looking for.

Pastor chris: 18:58

Right.

Renee Richel: 18:59

So again, I could go through all of these questions, but what do you think guys need to know about girls? I love that question just in regards, because it's really interesting when we interview people all day long the opposite sex and what they say. But what I love is she shared this with you, right, and this was prior to….

Pastor chris: 19:20

Honestly, renee, this is one of those times when we were talking about a little bit more seriousness in our relationship. We've been writing letters for about six months and we're like, hey, is this worth it? Because I'm overseas, she's a long distance, all that stuff and so I kind of posed the question why don't we do this? Why don't we just write out expectations of what we're looking for in our future spouse Don't pin it on me, don't pin it on you, whatever and let's exchange those in the mail? Yeah, awesome, we mailed them around the same time, but I will never forget when she received my letter and I'm a pretty thorough person and I had like 17 pages of expectations of my future wife. Oh, wow.

Pastor chris: 19:58

I mean, it wasn't that much I'm exaggerating, but it was like very detailed, yeah, and I remember her, that conversation we had and she was in tears. She's like Chris, I will never be able to fulfill these things and I'm like I know. But we asked what's our ideal right?

Renee Richel: 20:13

Right.

Pastor chris: 20:14

And it almost, instead of an encouragement, was almost like there's no way, I just can't do that.

Pastor chris: 20:21

I just grabbed a letter before I left out of a pile of love letters, and this just happens to be the one that she mailed to me that listed her expectations of what her future spouse is, and it's like half a page. It was very simple things like I want him to be a Christian, I want him to be searching for God's will for his life and continue, I want him to have a sense of humor, I want him to be kind, I want him to tithe, I want him to be halfway musical and be a family man, and I need a scrabble partner. It's simple things, and mine were like I expect her to be blah, blah, blah and all these things that were just pretty nitpicky, and so that was a long, hard week for the both of us, me trying to just kind of massage that that, hey, it's all good. No one's perfect and I'm just looking for someone that's probably never going to. You know, and from her expectation is, I'm just looking for someone that's going to walk with me in the journey.

Pastor chris: 21:13

Two different perspectives of love right, and that was a huge thing for us Eyeopening. We learned a lot from that, Also learned I'm an idiot when it comes to love. Why would I do that? Right, but through that, it was some great ways for us to move forward. What we both got out of it, though, is that God was first, and, Renee, I think you know and you stress that with all of your clients that if there's not a basis for love and God is love right If there's not a basis and a core from that to feed out of and to experience personally first, to then be able to express what you've experienced, you're going to miss out on what the ultimate defining love really is.

Renee Richel: 21:56

It's so true.

Pastor chris: 21:57

It's going to be a feeling, whereas love is not just a feeling. Love is a choice.

Renee Richel: 22:02

Yes.

Pastor chris: 22:03

And that you get to experience and live out.

Renee Richel: 22:05

And I love how you were saying earlier, because we get this all the time in how you were saying, how your answers are so differently. So we go through this needs and wants analysis. We tell everybody this is like a whiteboard, it's a free canvas. Just throw words out to us that are coming to your mind and we're going to put them all down. And we do, and some are a lot, some are drawing, some are. I always love it when we said, like what are you attracted to? I'll never forget one of my clients it's the only clients that have ever done it and he was one of the love letter people. Yes, and he had an appearance or attraction side of things. He actually did like a stick figure with a I don't know.

Renee Richel: 22:38

He had like a heart to it, but he put a heart in the middle because to him he's like I want the heart of somebody and I was like usually people are like, oh, you know, tall, dark, handsome, sexy, like all these things, and we're like we'll define that meaning and I love that. But I guess my point of where I'm going is what we then do. Is we go back, which they don't know this is happening? Is we go back and we say, okay, now, circle four, only four of your non-negotiables, and there could have been like 300.

Pastor chris: 23:04

That would have been me.

Renee Richel: 23:05

Right, right, or. And then we go over to the wands and we're like okay, and you only get four of your wands. And then we're like, okay, two of the appearance and one of the interests, because at the end of the day, if we hit at least 10 to 12 of these non-negotiable, really important things, then the rest are bonus. But when we're interviewing people, these are the reasons why you haven't found that person yet, because either we've been caught up in lust and we've totally pushed these aside, we've not really focused on the top 10 that really matter most, opposed to the huge list that nobody can, because I'm sure and we get it all the time when we then have a match that we have due this exercise too.

Renee Richel: 23:43

And they're like what did the other person say? And we're like well, we can't. I know we should have done this before you met, but like we can't really go back. And they're like, well, what if I don't match up? I'm like, well, here, I'm here to tell you when you guys share this, I am 100% sure, before I even introduced you, that these things already aligned, because I know what he was looking for. You didn't even know that I was interviewing you for that, and so where I'm going with that is I love your story because at the end of the day, it's called having a discussion, sharing, having couch talk, conversation, as I call it, which is fun to like dive into those things and then discuss how compromise, as you know, in a relationship like, I think, what it was, sudoku was at one of the things, or whatever she said, or a travel partner, right, so like that's something that maybe you don't like doing, or one like skiing and the other one doesn't.

Renee Richel: 24:27

I get that all the time right and it's like well, there's other ways that you can be there with your partner or do things that, just because you wanna be with them, you want to learn, and it's so important to continuously learn together because it makes a relationship fun.

Pastor chris: 24:40

Absolutely. And what you say about that person that said, hey, I just want someone that will have me in their heart. I want someone that's gonna value me, that's gonna lift me up, that's gonna wanna do things that I wanna do, but share in those experiences together. That's at the heart of what love is, and I think that's God's relationship with us too, right.

Renee Richel: 24:58

God's love.

Pastor chris: 24:58

He's just. I wanna share life with you. I wanna walk with you, I wanna journey with you. I wanna experience what you experience Bring me along, and that's what the journey and through life is all about. You know, there are folks they say opposites attract a lot of times. Right, I mean, you see that all the time and you're like how in the world does this work?

Pastor chris: 25:16

Well, it works because I may not wanna do everything that you wanna do, and that's fine for you to have separate interests. That's not a deal breaker for most relationships right. Right. But the whole point is, I'm gonna do these things, but I'm valuing you first, right?

Pastor chris: 25:29

I wanna do it with you, With you right and even if you hate them, I value you enough to come alongside and do these things that I may not necessarily love doing, but I value you Right and that's that mutual consideration. So one of the things that my wife and I do is I mean, we cook dinner together.

Pastor chris: 25:46

Neither one of us are fantastic cooks, so it's kind of like a drudgery in some ways, but we try to do it in a way that, hey, we're doing this and we just get this been timed together, right, and that's the whole point. That's where love really shows its face.

Renee Richel: 26:00

Yeah.

Pastor chris: 26:01

And if that's not there, then you might not be in the right place or in the right relationship.

Renee Richel: 26:05

Right, I totally agree. And we always tell couples to take selfies when they go on these little times together because they're memory building, right. And the two words I really can't stand are hate and I can't. And so many people are quick to say that because they're out of their comfort zone or they've been asked to do something they don't wanna do, or try a food that just because of looks of it. I always tell everybody when it comes to restaurants unless you have food allergies, somehow, some way it got on the menu, try it, yeah exactly.

Renee Richel: 26:35

Or if, like you're, you know, I mean, we've had some extreme, extreme dates that are just so incredible, like jumping off of a building together, going skydiving, things like that, and there's been some fear. I mean, if somebody obviously has a phobia around heights, we can't do those things. But I always tell everybody, if you trust in the Lord and he loves you and you trust in your mate, there's nothing the two of you can't do. And so it is so important, whether you're single, dating, engaged or married, that you trust God with more than anything in your heart. You trust your mate that he has brought you through obviously intense verification and questioning and asking all these things, and then when you fall and jump and take that leap of faith together, there's nothing you can't do and keep your eyes and your heart on constantly growing that relationship. So and there was something you were sharing earlier I love about how you share little notes on your in the bathroom, right? You?

Pastor chris: 27:34

said what? Yes, yes.

Renee Richel: 27:37

Such a cute idea and it's like maybe a $15 investment right Bingo target special. Where you want like change up little notes.

Pastor chris: 27:45

Yeah, little letters, you know, like the marquee signs, big neon flashing signs that are outside you know, and businesses used to be in the 80s right.

Renee Richel: 27:52

Well, we have like our XOXO sign, something like that, right, but you can change it.

Pastor chris: 27:55

I've changed the letters, that's it Not nearly as cool as this, but yes, but anyway, just those little things that hey, I put a little bit of effort into this, just a little bit. But, just to show you how much I value you, how much I appreciate you, how much I want to experience life with you. Those things go so far than even the elaborate 700 roses that I'm going to give you right. It's the little things that really say hey, I have you in my heart.

Renee Richel: 28:21

Right, right and that sign is going to continue to survive past flowers which are great. Us women love flowers. Don't get us wrong. But they don't last longer than what we want them to last when it comes to love right, that's where love can't be just appearance because, appearance is going to fade.

Pastor chris: 28:38

I mean all of us are going to get to the point where, hey, we're not in the young body that we wish to have. But what is going?

Renee Richel: 28:44

to last is we're so mentally attracted to them?

Pastor chris: 28:46

Yes, mentally, emotionally. Hey can we experience stuff together, Even our old age. I love watching older couples that have lived it out that have been together for years and years, and sometimes it's funny how they finish each other's sentences.

Pastor chris: 28:59

they get on each other's nerves every once in a while, right, but they've experienced so much together that they can't imagine not having that person with them. I love that. It's so true. That's the journey, that's the goal, but that's also what God models. God says I can't imagine not having you with me. So I'm doing everything I can to walk with you in this journey. And if that's the definition of love, god shows it to us. We experience it so we can express it.

Renee Richel: 29:24

I love that. And then one other little piece before. I know I'm getting like the okay and I'm like there's never enough time to talk about. All the things that I just want to talk about is I love that you brought up something. So for all the parents out there and everybody out there, that is our job. To inspire others, our youth is something that I am near and dear to my heart.

Renee Richel: 29:45

For and to educate kids what God's love is at a young age, because I can personally admit a lot of people in college kind of lead away from their faith because they went for the reasons of this family unit right, and then they have a hard time coming back and it's so important that our youth is taught God's love and to communicate that that. I love that you were able to pull up some love letters from children.

Pastor chris: 30:15

Elementary school experts.

Renee Richel: 30:16

I love it and I know you don't have them with you, but just if you can remember even one of them, that so there were a couple.

Pastor chris: 30:23

There was one where a guy named Benage just laid out his heart and he said Emily, you were great, I think you were so sweet. I really like you. In fact, you were so, so, so, so, so, so, sweat, I sweat, you were sweat, and you know just just the whole emotion. There was one kid who wrote a letter to a girl that said hey, I really like you, check yes or no. And and he wrote on there, don't laugh, this is serious, right. And I'm like hey, that's such a first grade perspective. I remember my first little girl that I liked in kindergarten and I invited myself over to her house and her. My mom had to fix all of that, but she chose to hang out more with her next door neighbor, john, than me, and how frustrating that was. I remember these when I'm reading these letters.

Renee Richel: 31:05

You didn't write her a check yes or no, or a circle yes or no letter. They'd tell her she had a problem.

Pastor chris: 31:09

But there was another girl, that another guy that did write it hey, do you like me, yes or no? And the girl wrote back I mean, this is pure second, third grade, right, right. The girl wrote back and said I don't know yet because I don't know myself yet. And then, and she wrote this whole philosophical argument from a third grade perspective, that I don't know myself. And, ps, I've heard that you really don't know yourself until you're 18.

Pastor chris: 31:30

I love that it's like I'm going to prolong this for 12 years. I'll keep you guessing, like a lot of women do. I'm going to play hard to get for the next 12 years, and if we're still kind of in it, then maybe.

Renee Richel: 31:39

I think that is so cute I think that is so adorable that she would even know that right.

Renee Richel: 31:44

Like what are the chances of that? So I think, whether you are, whatever age, you are young, wiser, whatever you want to call it, it's so important If you're listening, nothing more that we go back to our inner child, love from the way that we were born, to feel love, to be loved, to. Let all of I always say what I love is with every day there's a sun, there's a sunrise and a sunset. So anything and everything of the garbage or the stuff that has been thrown at you in life or in relationships or wherever you're at, first and foremost go back to your youth of purity, of love, that God does love you, he does forgive you for whatever, maybe sins in your past or things that people tell you and that be pure in your heart so you can truly love the Lord that loves you, to be able to emulate this great love around you. So you never feel lonely, especially during this season. You never are in question am I in the right relationship? What do I do? Put effort in, try, do new things. Nobody should ever give up on a relationship without saying they tried everything right, absolutely. And so during this season, I encourage you I always say this if you've never written a love letter. If you're single, write a love letter to your future mate, which I know.

Renee Richel: 33:07

When I went through the single phase of it, it took me almost four years to finally be able to write a love letter. I kept trying to sit down and my team was like you need to do this, we need to do this, and I'm like finally, after like four years, I was able to actually write it down. And it was incredible because I was like now it's time to like receive whatever. That great love is right and so it's so important. If you don't feel that time is right, then start writing a love letter to your children or a dear friend.

Renee Richel: 33:35

And when we say love, it doesn't have to be just romantic. Obviously, it can just be. Write a few letters to dear friends you haven't in a while, because how many of us get junk or bills in the mail? How cool is it to actually get like a card of some sort that's sought through and handwritten? And we are definitely. I'm going to give more tips on Valentine's Day for any of you out there looking for some ideas and things like that last minute, but I just want to say thank you so much Chris for not only being so passionate about what you do, and if you haven't listened to some of other Chris's messages when he's been on here, I love it.

Renee Richel: 34:11

how he talked about. This Wasn't what he thought his calling was. We did one on how he wanted to be an orthodontist. So you've got to listen to that podcast so exciting, yes, exciting life. But I love that God is living so, so deep inside of you and rooted to inspire so many of us, and I always say I'd love to encourage you to join us at River Rock and so many other great things that they're doing there, cause I just love sitting with guests that come and then are a part of the family there.

Pastor chris: 34:37

So Thank you for allowing me to be here. It's always an honor and if I could say anything re-iterating what you said, just keep it simple. At Valentine's Day, I really show don't try to impress, just be yourself. Be yourself and express what you have been given, that you value the other person so much more.

Renee Richel: 34:55

Share your heart and loving way I love it.

Renee Richel: 34:59

We are going to love and leave you and can't wait for our next upcoming chat, and I promise I'm going to do something on Valentine's Day, and remember we do this every Thursday, so come, plug in. Whether it's single dating or engaged, love is everywhere, at every phase, and we want to continue to inspire you and enrich you with God's love to share with others. God bless, it's been another great talk on this episode of 1 True Talks by Renee Richel. I look forward to our next chat. Please write in your questions and comments so I can be sure to talk about whatever it is you want to discuss in our next upcoming episode. Lots of love, God bless. We'll see you next time.