"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds"

on the constancy of true love, which stems first from Christ

My favourite Shakespearean sonnet is 116, which I was first introduced to in the gorgeous 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. It is ironically recited aloud by a character whose love did alter; and though he loved, he did not love enough, and he did not love truly.

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

---

These words have been coming to my mind so much over the last fortnight or so, as I have already watched the above film for the first (of many, many¹) times this year. I felt I had to write something with this sonnet as my starting point.

Shakespeare did write unerringly here. He did not miss the mark in any regard. True, real, lasting love does not alter. It does not sway in the aberrations of hurt or wrongdoing. It is fixed, and if anything, it deepens. Where reconciliation and forgiveness and genuine apologies are, love bears out, until the end of time.

Of course, true love is that which we find in 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…

Love blooms most under duress. True love does, that is. It will grow and deepen and flourish either during, or after (or both!), a hardship between two parties. It forgives all, forgets all wrongdoings, and does not insist on its own way. It is saying I’m sorry, again and again, and it is saying I forgive you, over and over.

from Regina Spektor’s incredible song, “Loveology”

Loveology, loveology
I'm sorry-ology
Forgive me-ology

Love is not proud. It cannot be. It is compromise and letting go of self-victimisation and giving way to the one whom you love. It is doing what my brother does so often and so well: being the bigger person and offering an apology even if he didn’t need to give one, really. It is humility in action.

Love is blind to the waning of time and the aging of one’s body and face. It is blind to the imperfections of our broken vessels of clay. It is blind to the forgotten rush of happy feeling that comes at the first part of every relationship, romantic or platonic. When it is no longer easy to overlook someone’s imperfections, no longer easy to rely on the lovely companionship that existed for however long, true love pushes past that and looks to the character of the one you have come to love.

Love defends itself in what it knows to be the core of the relationship. It does not sit in resentment and forget why it exists in the first place. Love remembers the good the other party has always done, and it does not forgo its throne to its rival, bitterness.

Love is not always practised perfectly. It is not always carried out correctly. We, who bear it solely by the grace of God, are flawed, and so we cannot always love flawlessly. But by His strength, and in our deepening walks with Christ, we will always love truly. Our ships will right their courses under the sails of the Word and the conviction of the Spirit.

Though it is difficult, as it was for Marianne Dashwood in Sense, and as it has been for me lately, it must sometimes be accepted that a love once held was not true. It was shallow and could not last a refining fire. It did alter, it did resent, it did insist on its own way. It was only sweet when all was well; it turned bitter when a tempest came. But praise be to God, there is One who loves perfectly.

And so I close by replacing the word “love” with He who is Love:

Christ Jesus does not alter when He meets our sinful alterations; He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And moreover, He intercedes on our behalf when we faithlessly stray from His will.

Christ Jesus is our ever-fixèd mark, who looks on tempests and is never shaken. He calms the storm and stills the waters. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. He has conquered sin, death, hell, and our Enemy of old.

Christ Jesus bears us out to the end of time, promising to complete the good work He has begun in us, promising that there is nothing and no one, including ourselves, that can pluck us from His grasp.

Christ Jesus is patient and kind. He is humble and meek. He is loving and gentle. He is the only way, truth, and life. And He promises to flourish us when we walk under His lead. He remembers our sin no more, and He removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west.

Christ Jesus is forbearing with us as we repent, for what feels like the thousandth time, of the same sin. He takes our penitent shame and infuses it with grace, godly sorrow, and true repentance. He believes us when we cry out to Him for forgiveness, and He reminds us that there is no condemnation for those who walk in Him.

Happy, happy Valentine’s day!!

1. Throughout 2024, I watched Sense upwards of 10 times, and found myself falling more and more in love with this wonderful story that relays the constancy of true love, not only in the romantic relationships, but in those between the sisters and their mother. As I reread this book currently, for the first time in a few years, I am even more bewitched by Austen’s stunning tale of the triumph of love in the perfect blend of sense and, her romantic, emotional sister, sensibility.