Mon, May. 6
... A love that never lets me go
All of us have had poignant ecstasies of heart over a love affair that subsequently turned to immobilizing pain and shock as we realized that our lover could actually know us and yet leave us for another. But have you ever dated someone and you just knew, from the first time you met her, that she was the one you wanted to spend your life with? As you laughed and talked and marveled together, you felt your love deepen to a heart bond that you knew you never wanted to free yourself from. And have you ever been so shocked to find one day that the one you loved so deeply and who you thought loved you just as passionately, had been dating other guys and, moreover, was spending more and more of her time with your worst enemy?Have you ever had to literally turn a lover over to a mortal enemy to allow her to find out for herself what her intentions toward her really were? have you ever had to lie in bed knowing she was believing his lies and having sex with him every night? Have you ever sat helplessly in a parking lot, while your enemy and his friends took turns raping your lover even as you sat nearby, unable to win her heart enough so she would trust you to rescue her? Have you ever called this one you had loved for so long, even the day after her rape, and asked her if she was ready to come back to you only to have her say her heart was still captured by your enemy? Have you ever watched your lover's beauty slowly diminish and fade in a haze of alcohol, drugs, occult practices, and infant sacrifice until she is no longer recognizable in body or soul? Have you ever loved one so much that you send your only son to talk with her about your love for her, knowing that he will be killed by her? (And in spite of knowing all of this, he was willing to do it because he loved her, too, and believed you were meant for each other.)
All this and more God has endured because of his refusal to stop loving us. Indeed, the very depth and faithfulness of his love for us, along with his desire for our freely given love in return, are what give Satan the ammunition to wound God so deeply as he carries out his unceasing campaign to make us into God's enemy. The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
What more can I say? How much longer can I run, can I allow myself to be won over and chased by someone else? Far too long. Yet so often, when I take a baby step back, all that comes of it is that I'm seduced away again.
I want to be faithful. I don't want to turn, to stumble, to fall, to walk away and turn my back on such a love as his.
It sets a precedent. I don't want to be lured away from the greatest heart's cry and love that I could ever imagine. If that becomes--or continues to be--my pattern, what happens to those who love me so much less? To those whose love does not reach so far, to those I love so incompletely, and who love me back with an equally incompetent ardour? If I can't remain faithful to the truest love who has always been and always will be faithful to me, how will I stay faithful to those who can't? How will I love them back?
In some ways, though, it's easier. It's easier to comprehend a faulty, flawed love that occasionally fades; that occasionally slips up; that isn't so perfect. It's easier to understand a love that is not so great and deep and wide and full. It's easier to forgive a love that sometimes leaves, then recognizes that and comes back than it is to accept a love that is so persistent and always there. It's easier to compare myself to a love that is like mine, rather than so far beyond mine that I have no hope whatsoever of living up to it.
And yet, I long for the perfect love. I long for it with other people, I long to be able to give it, I yearn for the day I can receive it. So why do I shy away from it when it is so readily available?
It's frightening. Overwhelming. Powerful. Intimidating. More than I can handle or understand.
But it's still there; it always has been. I suppose all this doesn't really matter, because whether I want it to be there or not, it is, and it always has been. Always will be. And to argue with it is pointless. To run from it... Well, I can run, but not forever. One day I'll have to face up to it.
infinite || abyss
posted at 1:08 p.m.
