Perfect Love

My goodness, how life can change in the blink of an eye.

It seems that it was just a couple months ago that I was weeping over my heart being broken by a silly boy who I had crushed on for about three years. I can still remember the day I met my friend, Jessy, but I can't exactly remember the first time I met her brother. Back then I never saw what was coming, but everything has been such a beautiful picture of how God's plan for our lives is so far superior to our own.

On May 2nd, my boyfriend of then ten months, asked me a very important question. 

The past year has been a whirlwind in which I have had to hold on tightly to God's word and His promises at all times. Like those old merry-go-rounds at the park where someone would spin you and you'd have to hang on for dear life, if I let go for just one moment and decide to lean on my own wisdom (apart from God's), the result would be a painful landing and a stabbing regret.

As much as this falling sucks, it is the most vivid example of how deeply we need a Savior. Before we even started dating, Ryan and I were strong Christians, but this relationship thing has shown us that we knew nothing! How humbling is that?? 

We make each other the most angry and the most happy; we are the cause of the most joy and the most pain for one another; we have to come togther but keep God as the center or else we have nothing to hold us together. Love is a kind of paradox that makes no sense unless you look at it through the eyes of Jesus.

There are times when being engaged is the scariest thing in the world. There is this other person for whom you will soon be responsible, to love, to care, to feed, to give shelter...

1 John 4:18 says, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives our fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." This verse causes a lump to rise in my throat because it strikes so close to home.

It is very true that there is no fear in love, but it is also true that perfect love cannot derrive from anything I can create. Perfect love can only come from one place, as anything perfect ever can. The only way to find this perfect love is to go to your knees.

Ryan likes for us to pray together on our knees, and as strange as it was to me at first, I now see that it is engaging your entire body in a posture that asks for grace and mercy. A begging position. That is what we are, after all. Beggars.

"You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust. You are making me new." Those words from the Gungor song are so true. The dust that is our lives is made new by the Lord when we ask Him for grace and forgiveness. 

It is only through this perfect love that Ryan and I can experience no fear in our relationship, and that is not by anything that he or I have done, but it has everything to do with how great a God we have!

Just Temporary Bliss?

Today on Pandora, I heard a song called "Temporary Bliss". As I listened to The Cab singing away, I noticed how profound the lyrics were. The song, while not the best pop song ever written, had a meaningful and deeply penetrating message. When I stopped to think about what the songwriter had meant and what the singer must feel, I was moved almost to tears. Not because it was a romantic song, but because it this song clearly conveys the use it and throw away mentality that we use in relationships today and the very real hurt that results from such a relationship.

"I can't keep touchin' you like this

If it's just temporary bliss

Just temporary bliss"

Anybody who knows how guys think will know that physical touch is a profoundly meaningful thing. One touch can set a guy off. Actually, you don't even have to touch a guy to make him want a girl. But these lyrics tell of the meaning behind that initial physical desire. Besides the yearning for physical intimacy, guys want to know that this love is real and that it is forever.

The poor guy singing this song is trapped in love with a girl who he is begging to give him some ounce of reassurance. "Tell me what's the point of doin' this every night? What you're givin' me is nothin' but a heartless lullaby." This song is heartbreaking - we want the sweet guy singing to his girl to find love and to find it forever. Why?

It's interesting that this song was written by a bunch of guys. The Cab and The Messenger (who co-wrote) collaborated to create this song from the deepest part of man's soul. While society and popular culture will make you think that guys only want one thing, have we ever stopped to wonder why that may be? Is it truly wrong for a man to want a woman and to keep wanting her day after day? Maybe there is something deeper at work here than sex and romance. Maybe people were made to be together every day, and I mean in all ways, emotionally, socially, physically, spiritually.

It's evident that woman feel the same way. Look at any romance film, read a cheesy love novel, or find a teenage girl to pour her heart out to you. Because girls express themselves more openly, they are often willing to admit that they want a love that will last forever and that will bring them fulfillment. The Indigo Girls sang, "And the closer I'm bound in love to you, the closer I am to free." Check Rihanna's song "Only Girl (In the World)":

"I want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world

Like I'm the only one that you'll ever love

Like I'm the only one who knows your heart 

Only girl in the world."

Hmmmm, this is sounding an awful lot like what Paul wrote about in Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." (Talk about I'll catch a grenade for ya). On the other hand, a little bit before the part on husbands, it says, "Wives, submit yourrselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord."

Now settle down there, ladies, that doesn't mean we are slaves to our husbands or boyfriends. It means that men require respect, honor, and obedience (recognition that they are authorities and sources of strength and support). It's how they are made, and in order for any relationship to work out, these two components (wives loved, husbands respected) has to be occurring. Eminem's song "25 to Life" bluntly conveys the heart of a man (I've edited out the explatives), "Look at how I dress, baggy sweats, go to work a mess - always in a rush to get back to you. I aint heard you yet, not even once, say you appreciate me. I deserve respect." Now maybe Mr. Marshall Mathers is missing the "love your wives" part, but he is honestly expressing the male desire to be respected and seen as an authority.

This isn't a cultural thing either. In a Psychology Today article, it says that "Ratings of passion were higher in American than Chinese couples, but rating of intimacy and commitment did no differ." Ancient literature contains countless stories of gods, goddesses, heroes, warriors, vikings, and other types of individuals who declare war, fight, steal, pillage, and kill all because of a love wronged. I don't know about you, but to me it's looks like we're missing something here, folks.

 Psalm 139 says "You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thought from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways." I'm not sure that Eminem would read these words and let them go to heart, but they are truly getting to the crux of what he and everyone else in this world wants: to be loved. To be loved, and for that love to last forever.