LOVE: Flowers and Chocolate or Sacrifice and Choice?

This week’s blog post will be slightly different. Once a month, I am going to write about the portrayal of rightly ordered love in different novels. Because of my Christian background, I know that God is love. Therefore, I understand that love is sacrifice, and love is not about the individual but about the other. To quote 1 Corinthians: 4-7,

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

This love can be seen in many different ways: between a husband and wife, parents and a child, siblings, friends, and even strangers. Because of this scripture, I know what rightly ordered, true, and beautiful love looks like. I have found many occurrences of this love in novels (and some examples of what not to do). With this monthly series, I hope to share some of these examples and why I am convicted that they show true love.

Today’s book is Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead. This is the last book in the Vampire Academy series.

****WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD****

I am not going to go into great detail about the books and the plot – you will have to go read them yourself ;), but I will link the box set on Amazon at the bottom of this post. I highly, highly recommend this entire series. It is easily in my top three if not my favorite series of all time. Let’s dive in!

To set the stage, Rose Hathaway, the main character, is entrenched in a love triangle with her mentor turned lover, Dimitri, and the fun-loving, high-class bachelor, Adrian. Rose has been torn between the two for some time, especially after Dimitri went through a life-changing experience that he believes has marred his soul beyond repair. Dimitri has been pushing Rose into Adrian’s arms because he believes he is no longer worthy of loving her. BUT, Rose has a revelation that her love for Dimitri is not fading, only getting stronger, and her love for Adrian pales in comparison. The moment she realizes this is the moment in the book that truly shows what love is. While searching her soul, Rose ponders,

“What was love really? Flowers, chocolate, and poetry? Or was it something else? Was it being able to finish someone’s jokes? Was it having absolute faith that someone was there at your back? Was it knowing someone so well that they instantly understood why you did the things you did – and share those same beliefs?”

These questions reveal the deep truths about what true, beautiful, honest love looks like. Love is not purely on the surface. Love is not about material things. Love is not about simply having fun with the other person, as Rose explains later, but rather, it is about the other person strengthening you, making you a better person, and understanding you perfectly.

Love can do none of these things if it is self-centered or surface deep. Love must originate from deep within your heart and soul. It is not simply an emotion, as many of us think it is. Love is not a feeling but an active choice. Every. Single. Day.

From personal experience, this quote changed my understanding of love. I remember clearly when I read this passage the first time that I truly understood it. My boyfriend at the time had a balcony off his bedroom. I was sitting on the balcony in a soft summer breeze, basking in the fading sunlight. My boyfriend was in the house doing something as I was reading this passage. Something shifted inside of me that night. Unbeknownst to my poor ex-boyfriend, in reading this quote, I reflected on our relationship and knew it would not last. Our relationship was all flowers and chocolates.

Further, I unfortunately realized that I was becoming a worse person in the relationship. He was not trying to make me a better person; instead, he encouraged me to make bad choices and enabled me to walk down a dangerous path. I had thought my love for him would grow, but I was forcing it. It wasn’t there because not one facet of our relationship was based on rightly ordered love. It was all selfishness and emotion, nothing deeper.

Love is complex and often hard to understand when we are in it. We may think our love is rightly ordered or convince ourselves that we will one day reach that point. We are blind to our shortcomings and rationalize our choices if it “feels good”. I am afraid to admit that I may have still been in that relationship today if I had not read Last Sacrifice when I did because I was willing to overlook too much and had a misconstrued understanding of rightly ordered love.

I will forever be grateful to books. They can act like mirrors, pointing out the flaws inside of us. Last Sacrifice was a mirror for this relationship and saved me from making a grave mistake. This book also helped me set my standards higher and realize that I am deserving of that deep love that will push me to become a better person – we all are.

Love is one of the most important things – it defines our morality. We have no reason to act morally without love. It is because of love for the other that we choose to act morally and virtuously. I hope you will enjoy this monthly series about love and recognize the importance of rightly ordered love along with me.

As always, please click the button below to leave a comment, question, or suggestion. I would be happy to hear your thoughts on love.

Vampire Academy Book Link: Amazon Vampire Academy box set

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