Within every relationship there is sharing. The personal sharing of hopes, wishes, dreams, desires, emotional feelings, pains, frustrations, and fears. A marriage relationship is a catalyst for the sharing of love. The sharing in our relationships works on us from the inside out. Because we humans struggle with selfishness, our relationships require us to give of ourselves, sharing our most precious asset, which is our time. In order to love we must share, our relationships infuse otherness, and teach us that sharing is caring.
A marriage relationship is intended to be the deepest form of sharing, sharing in communication, sharing of material items, sharing a home or residence, and the sharing of ourselves both emotionally and intimately. All this sharing is meant to develop a ever deepening permanent bond between partners and to encourage us to become better lovers. A lover is defined as a person who loves or is loved, it is often represented in a romantic circumstance. However in this context, it is referred to as a person that loves others. A lover shares of themselves without the desire for personal gratification.
The word sharing in relationships is not intended for use with the motivation to acquire anything. It’s not about what you get in return for what you have shared or given. Sharing in relationships gives without expecting reciprocation for any loving activity. The action of sharing shows the intentions of caring and the love expressed through otherness. You can’t express love with selfish intentions. This does not say that if one partner is sharing, that the other partner should just sitting around in receiving mode, that too is selfish. It is saying that just because you give or share something does not mean that you should expect or require any kind of reciprocation. Both partners should be sharing in their relationship, that is how the love flows between them. Sharing in relationships should be because both partners want to be better lovers, and because they want their spouse to know how much they care about them.
Sharing shows caring, and expresses appreciation for the receptions through love. When someone shares something with you, such as a meal, gratitude is often expressed in a verbal form. In order to express meaningful gratitude, one must have felt the feelings that are part of true appreciation. You see that someone cared enough to share with you and you allow your feelings to appreciate it. When you feel love at that level, you want to share your appreciation for it. This is a response to sharing that accepts the love given, enjoys it, and with love, reciprocates appreciation. It shares back of it’s own loving desire, not because of any requirement. It is true that many people voice gratitude without really meaning it, so what? A lover is a planter of love, not of self centered motivations.
With every sharing action of love, there is a reaction to that love. The reaction, comes from it’s reception, but that reaction is not always positive and it may not venture any return. Remember the phrase; give without any strings attached? Well, sharing in relationships often requires us to share without any strings attached. We give because we love, we share because we care. In the love of the sharing itself is the gift, when you share love in any form, you should experience that joy. In fact, if you are a true lover, you should feel that joy deep in your soul, it should tickle your heart.
When someone is sharing something with you, you know that the source of that sharing is love. At it’s highest, most beautiful form, sharing in relationships is true love. It’s not the size of the sharing that counts, little acts of kindness make big impressions. If my wife so much as warms up a single egg roll, she makes a significant effort to see that I share some of it with her. She says; "here honey try it", as she moves it to my mouth. She does not do it out of guilt, she does it because she likes to share with me. Because I know the source of her sharing effort, and appreciate the love she is sharing with me, that egg roll actually tastes twice as good as it normally would!
When sharing becomes a habit, selfishness diminishes, and love overflows. Sometimes you just have to ask yourself a question like; "what kind of a relationship do I want to experience"? When you have that answer, you can then actively pursue it by your own caring love. You have got to tend to your own garden of sharing before you see a rich relationship garden. Every act of sharing in relationships is a seed of love in your own flower pot! Sharing is caring, do you care enough about your relationship to share the love required for it’s blooming?
The generous man will be prosperous, And he who waters will himself be watered. Proverbs 11:25
But don’t forget to be doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Hebrews 13:16
…remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’" Acts 20:35