I Met A Girl

I met a girl. She's awesome. And what's more, she thinks I'm awesome. We are very awesome. You might say that I'm in love. I've told her that I love her at least a hundred times now. It feels good to say "I love you" when you mean it. I couldn't really say that to a girl until now. Now it's not hard to say it at all, in fact, it just feels like a sin not to say it. We've also kissed. I've heard some Christians say that you shouldn't kiss before you're married. Maybe they're right. Kissing is dangerously fun. Why is it so fun? I don't know, but it's not as fun if you don't love the person. But I love this girl, and so it's fun to kiss her. Ever since we started dating, I've felt like I was dreaming. I know that sounds corny and it's probably because of some chemical imbalance, but that's how I've felt. I keep thinking that it's too good to be true. If I don't see her for a day then I think that I imagined it all. Maybe it's because somewhere along the line I'd become a cynic about true love. I was beginning to wonder if it really existed. It seems that when life pranks us over and over again, we become skeptical about anything that resembles hope. Or love.

 To tell you the truth, falling in love was terrific and terrifying at the same time. I found myself asking scary questions like "What if she doesn't love me as much as I love her?" or "Does this mean that I have to start tucking in my shirt?" And then I began to wonder if God was going to get mad at me for loving her so much. I didn't want Him to get jealous that I was giving her so much attention. I didn't want to get into trouble, I didn't want to mess it up. I'm not going to lie, there have been some bumps in the road. We've had a few minor arguments, but in hindsight I realize that even those arguments were really because of love, love finding some kind of traction through trust. We were both feeling like we were miles off the ground, and if this thing didn't work out then it was going to hurt. Someone told me to guard my heart and I told him that I'd heard that before but now I wasn't sure what that meant. In the past, guarding my heart meant keeping people at a distance. But I didn't want to keep this girl at a distance. I wanted to let her in. I wanted to risk a little in order to reach for something a little impossible.

It's fun to tell people about the person you love. When I told my parents, my mom said "I've never heard you talk like that before about a girl." I probably look and sound a little crazy when I tell people about her, then they naturally want to meet her, probably just to make sure that I'm not crazy. I think that's how it should be when we tell people about Jesus too. We should be so intense and giddy as we talk about Jesus that people should want to meet him. He really is a very nifty person. He created a whole world full of galaxies and oceans and music and the girl I love. If that doesn't spark interest in people then they are uninteresting people.

 I see why it's a bad idea to love someone more than God. When something good tries to pose as God then it actually becomes a lie, because it can never be God, God is God. It's always a bad idea to let a lie rule your life. Through all of this, I keep telling God that He is my supreme love. He is God. But I'm not really reminding Him, I'm reminding myself. This girl is a gift from God, one more expression of God's love to me. It's scary how our eyes can get so fixated on a gift more than the person giving it. The dangerous thing about God's generosity is that we can become very selfish and spoiled children. We can even forget to love him back. And yet there's also a curious dimension to this in that I can love God to a certain degree by loving this girl. By romancing her, I can't help but see God smiling from ear to ear. He's blessed when she's blessed. He probably even chuckles when he sees us together, we can be very silly. Sometimes one of us will pretend we are going in for a kiss and then lick the other's nose. She started it. We've shared some nutty experiences. Like the other day, we were standing in the extremely long line at Voodoo Donuts in Portland. Suddenly, hundreds of people started screaming and pointing and running down the street. Most of the people jumped out of line which was fine with me. A surprise appearance by Godzilla himself would not prevent me from partaking in the rare delicacy of an Oreo/Marshmallow donut. So what was everyone freaking out about? Well, apparently once a year Portland hosts a parade where thousands of people ride bikes through downtown. And they are naked. I've never seen so many naked people, I'm probably scarred and need lots of prayer and healing now. Anyway, we got our donuts and ate them while surrounded by the delightfully romantic ambiance of thousands of streakers on wheels. Yes, thank you Portland for that indelible memory, you really are weird, but I still love you. Anyway, dating is lots of fun. To be continued...

Everybody Marries The Wrong Person

"Everybody Marries The Wrong Person." I saw this statement as a book title and it got me thinking. It sounds pessimistic at first, but to me it was a refreshing thought in its own way. There is so much pressure to find the one person in the world who is right for you. But that is the problem. There is something wrong with everybody. If you don't see their quirks and flaws right away, then time will tell all. Our thinking is riddled with contradictions. We know that nobody is perfect and yet we search for the perfect husband or wife. And if that's not enough, many of us feel the pressure of becoming perfect before we get married. But how can we really expect to be a crack shot at something that we've never done before?

I read an article in this month's Psychology Today that challenges the idea that there is one right person for everyone. The article said that that sort of thinking sets couples up for disenchantment and disappointment and often divorce follows. The reason is because it excuses you from taking responsibility for the problems in the relationship because your first thought is "I married the wrong person, it's all her fault, I need to get out of this and find the right person." Now, there are extreme exceptions. For instance, being married to a meth addict would pose a lot more problems than being a married to a person with a full set of teeth. But the point is that when people hop from relationship to relationship looking for the "right person" then they are merely trading old problems for a set of new ones. Why? Because you and I are part of the problem. We don't necessarily need to change partners we just need to mature.

Regardless, it seems that many Christians think that there is one right person for them. I'm not sure where they got this, because it's not in the Bible anywhere, unless you have the Disney translation. Of course, God is involved in the whole process of two people coming together but I'm not convinced that it's predestined or written in the stars somewhere. It sounds more like a lot of singles are looking for an easy marriage, and all the married people are telling us that marriage is challenging no matter who you marry. Maybe we should listen. It's interesting that statistically speaking young people are getting divorced more than anyone else. An article in the NY Times reads "more marriages dissolve before the age of 30 than at any other time." I bring this up because I find that youth and idealism often go hand in hand. Don't get me wrong, I am a glass-half-full optimist, but idealism is a little different. Optimism sees the good side of reality. But idealism is fueled more by fantasy and sets us up for disillusionment, because we weren't seeing the world clearly in the first place. Idealism doesn't equip us with the tools we need to face reality.

Yesterday, in our church staff meeting, a pastor's wife was talking about how blessed she was by her husband. I hope that my future wife someday boasts about me. I think that would be the highest compliment, to hear that from the one person who knows you better than anyone, who knows about your shortcomings and yet brags about you to others. It doesn't seem to happen very much these days, sadly I hear so many wives badmouthing their husbands. Maybe some of it is warranted and maybe some of it is a little harsh. I don't want to fuel the battle of the sexes and there is always two sides to a statistic, but it is interesting that statistically women file for divorce twice as much as men. However, this is not necessarily a point for the guys, because generally speaking guys tend to be less eager to work on their marriages.

If we want an actual Biblical model for marriage, then here it is: Christ didn't marry us because we were the "right person," Christ loved us while we were still sinners. This is the divine blueprint for a divine marriage. A marriage that is alive is a marriage that grows out of the dirt into something lush and beautiful. I think that compatibility is not static, but that if two people are willing then they can grow more compatible over time. In short, you will marry a sinner and so will she. Mistakes are inevitable, but forgiveness will make a relationship invincible.

A Poem About God's Love

A heart that dares to love, is a heart that dares to break
And a God who infinitely loves is a God who must infinitely ache
How does it feel to have so many runaway children when you're a good Father?
How does it feel to wait for a bride that leaves you standing at the altar?
How can you be so crazy about a world full of crazy people?
Surely, You are not blind and yet you love everyone as equal
Oh lover of my soul, how deep does your love for me really go?
If you were to love only the polished parts of me, well then there aren't many
And if you're looking for perfection then I'm not ready
I need a love that goes deeper than me, deeper than sin
Because most of the time I feel like I have an evil twin
Do you love even him?
I need a love that is willling to stand by me through it all
Not only when I'm taking a stand but when I'm taking a fall
And so it seems that when I'm on the ground is when I'm much, much closer to bowing down
And I do bow
I bow even now
Under the weight of this love I cannot possibly stand, I cannot possibly understand
I cannot possibly withstand
This love that outlives death, this love that fills my every breath
This love that pursues the very crumbs of my soul
This love that burns until it devours me whole
How many times have I walked away?
And how many times have you called my name?
Anyone that does the math will see what I see
39 lashes plus 3 nails sounds like love to me
In the end, my heart doesn't stand a chance
Against a God that went through hell for me, a God that bleeds romance.

Stop Dreaming, You'll Never Get Married

Some of us singles are beginning to think that way. Marriage has become imaginary for many of us. It's in a galaxy far, far away, something that only happens in movies or for the lucky few who find that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It seems like there should be more of us getting married but we're not. And then there's that nagging feeling that maybe your destiny is closer than you think. Maybe she is across the coffee shop right now. Maybe, she is looking at you and wondering the same thing.

I have to admit there are some fairly paradoxical Scriptures about the vision for marriage. For instance "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church" but then there is "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife. . . then he cannot be My disciple." Here's another biblical paradox, in one place it says "It is better for a man not to marry" and yet elsewhere it says "He who finds a wife finds a good thing." Ok. . .so I could probably contextualize these scriptures in a way that brings comfort and clarity, but I want to let the tension linger a little.

The point is that marriage and love seem to be messier than most people care to admit. There are so many cute cliches about marriage and about what to look for and what to expect and how it works, and now we as singles are left peering into bottomless idealism. People tend to exagerate things when they talk about something that other people haven't experienced. I have to laugh when I hear someone talking about how being a Christian is "one big, amazing rollercoaster of an adventure!" Maybe they live in Christian Candyland, but I don't. In the real world, I've found that the Christian journey is, for the most part, a series of gritty conversations, conversations with God and conversations with people about God. It's intriguing and fun, but not exactly a non-stop sugar-high. Not only do we glamorize but we can't help but organize. In our minds, we organize the way that things should be and will be, and when things are not that way then we think that something has gone wrong. But maybe we had the wrong expectations in the first place.

Likewise, marriage has become so idealized and organized in our young minds that reality can't seem to measure up. I'm trying something new. I'm trying to imagine myself married and placing myself in very ordinary scenarios. For instance, imagining myself cleaning the house or grocery shopping with my wife. It doesn't sound very fun, but it sounds real. I am also imagining life's hiccups within the context of marriage, like getting a flat tire on the way to church, or one of us getting sick for a week. Sure, there will be romantic date nights and fun get-aways, but there will also be the mundane, the occasional boredom, and the ever-present need for God's hopeful light in the valley. I'm leaving room for the reality that marriage will be different than how I've organized it in my mind. Everything else in my life has defied my expectations, so marriage will probably follow suit. The reality of marriage will constantly challenge the way I think marriage should be. It will go left when it's supposed to go right. Life is like that. Sometimes, it rains on Christmas when it's supposed to snow. But who says it's supposed to snow? Who's making these rules for Christmas and marriage and the way things are supposed to be? Maybe we are. We are all like Pharisees who take a few good principles and turn them into stiff, lifeless rituals. I don't want a marriage like that, I want a marriage that breathes and sometimes bleeds because it is alive.

Dying

It seems that great love always begins with an aching, and it ends with an even greater aching. . .ahh love.

I went to a funeral yesterday. It was for Matt's dad. Matt was one of my closest childhood friends. His dad was a good man, and even at 54 he was too young to die. Funerals are the only ceremonies I can think of where the guest of honor isn't there. As I sat through the service in the church that I grew up in, surrounded by people that watched me grow up, I was once again reminded that life promises death, love promises loss. As I looked around the room I realized that as I get older I will lose more and more of these people and then it will be my turn to go. I know this, I've always known this, and yet there are times when you truly know something in a way that you can almost taste it. Where it's not just a passing thought, but it's a gravity that grips your senses.

But this is a blog about love and dating and heartbreak and marriage and everything in between, so why am I writing about a funeral? Well, it reminded me that often we as singles can be so preoccupied with thinking about that one special person that isn't in our life yet, and we can so easily forget to cherish all the amazing people that are in our life right now. They won't always be there. Again, we all know this, but do we really know this? Also, I think about the fact that we aren't promised another day or even another breath. Whoever said that we were all guaranteed a soul mate and a wedding and a family and grandchildren someday? We aren't entitled to anything. We have today, and that's all we have. Even today will soon be in the catagory of loss, we can never get it back. If we don't choose to live a full life today, then we won't do it tomorrow either or next week or next year or whenever. Today is the day to love each other like we've never loved before. To love each other like we are all dying, because we are.

Autumn itself is something of a poetic funeral. Death falls from the trees. And we too will pass from this world like a wandering leaf. Without warning. Without a sound. We will be carried away by a brisk wind never to be seen in this world again. And it is only those who have truly loved, that will have truly lived.

Pursuing or Stalking?

In my relations with girls, I've always felt that there is a very fine line between pursuing and stalking. For instance, throwing pebbles at a girl's window at night could be interpreted as magically romantic or just plain psychotic. A series of letters from "a secret admirer" could be a girl's lifelong fantasy or her worst nightmare. You just never know. When it comes to sweeping a girl off her feet, it's difficult to know if you are trying too hard or not trying hard enough. And let's face it, if you try to sweep some girls off their feet then you're bound to get a face-full of pepperspray. Cavemen never had it this rough.

As a guy, you never know if a girl perceives you as a gallant pursuer or a creepy stalker. Girls, give us guys a break sometimes, will ya? If you don't want to be chased then just tell us, we can take it. We don't like paradoxical signals-- it feels like the old game "Red Light, Green Light." But if you do want to be chased then make it a little more obvious, we'll give you a headstart, whatever. If the cat-and-mouse thing isn't clear to us then we feel that if we go ahead and chase you, then you're going to tell all your girlfriends about us-- the creepy guy who won't leave you alone. And we don't want to be "that guy."

Unfortunately, I realize that this is all wishful thinking. The dance of dating is never this choreographed. Fortunately, most guys are risk takers. If we waited to figure out a girl before pursuing her then we would be celibate for life. Girls are an unsolved mystery, it's just one more thing that makes them captivating.

Plus, it's a good learning experience for us guys. Someday, my future wife will want me to understand her on a deep level. And that process begins when I first meet her and try to figure out what she needs and wants. Does she want more attention or does she want some space? Lesson number one: Timing is everything in everything. I could be frustrated with all of this mystery or I could appreciate that it compells me to look deeper into her heart. Thus, bringing us closer together in the end.

The way I see it, if Jesus is our male role model, then we must pursue our bride as madly as Christ pursued his. So boys, be men. And girls, maybe hold off on the restraining orders.

All The Single Ladies

I am constantly amazed that so many quality girls end up with not-so-quality guys. With frogs actually. Did they meet in the dark? Did they lose a bet? Maybe they thought that the frog would transform with enough tender loving care. And yet each day they hear the same ol' words-- ribbit ribbit. Why are their standards so low? Perhaps they've never had a man in their life who showed them a better way. Who showed them what it feels like to be treated like a lady. Girls who have higher standards usually had good dads. Dads who cherished them in a way that would ruin most girls' tolerance for amphibians. Some girls seem to gravitate toward the bad boys. The sad thing is that they get exactly that, and they are treated badly. What did they expect? I wonder how many gentlemen they passed up because they didn't know what a gentleman was.

It's interesting that the way a worldly guy picks up on worldly girls is by devaluing them. Instead of honoring the girl and rising to her level and reinforcing her dignity, a "player" will bring her down to his level by treating her like a cheap object and not as a prized princess. If he treats her like a princess then she is less likely to sleep with him, because he would only be reinforcing her precious worth. And her self-worth is what will prevent her from giving herself to the man in a cheap way. On the other hand, a real Christian guy will treat a woman as a daughter of God. And if there is any Father to fear then it is surely God. A godly man will treat her as if he is her older brother, zealously protecting her purity from the mangy wolves. His goal is not to get her to sleep with him, but to honor her in such a way that her high standards are maintained until her wedding day. Ladies, both kinds of men are out there. If a guy doesn't treat you like a princess then he is not a prince. Choose wisely.

So what is the true test for whether a man is indeed a man? Well, is he like Jesus? Pontius Pilate was right when he pointed to a bloodied Jesus and said "Behold, the Man!" You see, a real man lays down his life for the one he loves, because the one he loves is his life. Fortunately for us, Jesus didn't just send us flowers or chocolates or write us a poem or take us salsa dancing. But He actually volunteered to be our blood donor, when we were lying on our death bed. That is real sacrifice and that is real love.

In some of my conversations with top-notch Christ-like guys, they've talked about some of the fickle, non-commital, ambivalence that they've been experiencing with Christian girls that they are interested in. It only confirmed my suspicions. I used to think that there were so many quality girls who were still single because the guys weren't making an effort. But many guys are taking the initiative and yet they are getting stone-walled. And I'm not talking about losers, I'm talking about really great guys. But I'll be fair, both sides are responsible. Now, if people want to be single for the rest of their life then that's fine. There is nothing ungodly or unbiblical about that. But just don't blame anyone else for your singleness if you are passing up gems.

I'm not sure what the answer is to this stalemate, feelings are difficult to sort into black and white conclusions. These days, you can pick petals off of the proverbial flower and recite "She loves me. . .she loves me not" all day long, but in reality it's no longer that simple. Now you have to add "she's not sure if she loves me. . .she's not ready for a relationship. . .she doesn't know what God's will is. . .she loves me but not like that. . .it's complicated" and on and on it goes. There aren't enough petals in the world.

Weddings: 'Tis The Season

I have a love-hate thing for weddings. On the one hand, I dread them because they nag me like a thorn that I'm still single. And if there's any lapse of awareness of my single status, then I am soon corralled into a mob of chest-beating dudes competing for a flying garter belt. And yet there's a part of me that delights in weddings because they silence the skeptic within me and remind me that fairy tale love stories are absolutely true. That the magic of God-breathed love still peeks into the darkest of worlds. It reminds me that there is more to life than what I often live for, and much more to savor than what I often see just in front of me. Weddings are always proof positive that there are many more miracles to be encountered in my life. So, if there is anything to celebrate with extravagant dining and dancing, it is surely love finding love.

Yesterday, two amazing people became one. On the outside looking in, it seems like tying the knot is the closest thing to being born again. I know that life doesn't start when you're married, but it certainly seems to redefine life itself. To go down that road with someone is to embark into sheer mystery. It's a unique road that nobody has ever travailed, because no person is the same. And what's more, no combination of two people are ever the same. You two are daring to write a story that's never been written and will never be erased. For us who are single, we wonder what chapter of our love story we are currently living in. Every love story begins with singleness. It's not the prequel, it's an intricate part of the love story itself. It establishes the plot which makes for an epic romance in the end.

It's always amazing to me that it takes years and years for someone to arrive at her wedding ceremony and then it's over within a matter of minutes. I always wonder what is pouring through the couple's minds in those fleeting moments. Me being the skeptic, I find myself looking for signs of doubt or disappointment, but all I see is a deluge of blushing joy with a little terror. I wonder if those moments are like dying, in that a person's whole life flashes before his eyes in perfect clarity. Perhaps, the ghost of the past shows up at that wedding altar and smiles with a smug look of accomplishment. I'm sure that in that moment, looking back on your life's script is like discovering gravity, it was there all along and yet now it makes more sense.

The thing about running after love is that you never know if you're running in the right direction. It's very elusive. I can't think of anything more elusive. And I can't think of a better reason to pray. If God is love, then He no doubt has it all figured out in a way that I don't. I don't want to force something that isn't meant to be because something always breaks when I try to force anything. I don't think it's really a miracle for two people to get married just because they're bored of being single. But it's certainly miraculous for someone to get married because they found that one person in the world that makes them want to live life in a whole new way. That's my prayer, both for me and the girl I will marry. It is always weighty to realize that my prayers and decisions about my love life are affecting atleast one other person somewhere in this world.

Not too long ago, if you would have asked me what kind of a girl I'm looking for, then most likely I would have listed off a set of noble qualities. But now I realize that it goes deeper than that and that I'm actually hoping for that acute feeling of finally being at home with someone. A glass slipper moment. Indeed, love is an ocean and God is my breeze, and someday this weathered ship will happily crash into another that has been flying the same flag as mine through sunshine and storm for all of these years.

The Path of Purity

So, I've been meditating on purity. I'll share with you what God has shared with me. I've found that there are five essentials in the path of purity, and they all conveniently start with the letter P. To walk in purity demands more than reading a good book or attending a conference. It demands more than information or scare tactics. We are holistic creatures and therefore purity is a holistic discipline. The battle must be won on all fronts, in our mind, body, and soul. Compromise in one area affects all other areas of our life. The path of purity is both spiritual and practical.

The first essential is Passion. By that I mean, the quest for purity begins by having a strong passion for purity. You've got to want it. You've got to see the precious value in it. To be dragged along by sexual impurity is to remain outside of God's will which means that we will miss out on God's dreams for our lives, we will be less than who we were meant to be and we will not know God as joyfully as we could. Passion for sin robs us of our passion for God. For most of us, we've tasted the dirt of the darkness enough to know that we crave something far better. We are not willing to settle for anything less than the wholeness and peace and ecstasy of God's purity. More importanty, it is enough to know that God has placed eternal value on purity.

The second essential is Prayer. We need God's strength to fight for us. We need to pray daily "Create in me a clean heart, Oh God." We need to be so full of God's light that there is no corner or crevice left for darkness to spread. We need to pray that our pleasure in God would incinerate all other passions. Prayer turns our eyes to God and off of the temptations of this world.

The third essential is Partners. "Two are better than one." We need other people to have victory in this quest. We need brothers or sisters to fight with us. James says "Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you can be healed." Identify a friend of the same-sex who is equally passionate about purity. A friend that you can meet with weekly and discuss in explicit detail your tempations and stumblings and victories in the last week. Consistency and honesty is vital. This essential will bring sin into the light. Sin dies in the light. Everyone struggles with assaults on their purity, freedom comes in being reminded that you are not alone in your struggle.

The fourth essential is Promises. Meditate on the promises of scripture that pertain to purity. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." That's a positive promise. But there are sobering promises as well. Scriptures like "Without holiness, no one will ever see God" Hebrews 12. God takes purity very seriously. As we fill our minds with these cleansing realities then they will transform the way we think. Eventually our thoughts become more inclined toward pure thoughts.

The fifth essential is Position. We must position ourselves to minimize temptation. The Lord's Prayer tells us to pray "Lead me not into temptation." The truth is that some roads lead us into more temptation than others. We must be wise about the movies we watch,the internet sites we visit, the music we listen to, the places we go, the people we look at, and the kind of people we spend time with. We must setup practical safeguards so that we are not putting ourselves into a situation where we are constantly tempted by sexual sin. Many temptations are self-inflicted. Identify what exactly is triggering your temptations and seek out ways to minimize your exposure to those triggers. This essential is not based on fear but on passion. The New Testament tells us to "Flee youthful lusts" just like Joseph fled from Potiphar's wife. He put himself in a better position by getting out of that dangerous situation, it was his passion for purity that compelled him.

So there you go. . .Passion + Prayer + Partners + Promises + Position = Purity

If you are weak in purity, then it's because you are weak in one or more of these five essentials. Identify which one you are weak in and make a change. Purity is our true birth right.

Feelings

Ahh summer lovin'. Today, I walked past a couple who were holding hands and strolling along with that saunter in their step that said "Everything is awesome." They stopped and stared at a concrete pillar underneath a bridge. I must admit, I spied over their shoulders to figure out what they were looking at. They were just gawking at an ordinary concrete pillar. Apparently, even the pillar was awesome. It never ceases to amaze me how lovers can find a captivating piece of art even in the most mundane objects. They are able to see wonders that are invisible to those among us who are romantically-challenged at the moment. And one thing is for sure, they feel something and they feel a lot of it.

There seems to be an ongoing discussion about whether love is a feeling or a choice. It sounds as if many assume that it can't be both. . .or can it? Are feelings and choices really mutually exclusive? I've been watching a series of sermons by John Piper in which he postulates that throughout the scriptures, God commands us to feel certain ways. Now, if emotions and choices are completely at odds with one another then those would be unreasonable commands. Piper references verses like "Weep with those who weep." That's a command that involves us feeling something for a broken person. It would be very difficult to weep without feeling some sort of empathy. There are other verses like "Abhor what is evil." Abhor is a strong word, which means that you loathe or detest something, once again, it involves some emotion. "Rejoice always" is another command that requires us to feel something, and that something is joy. God commands our emotions with other statements like "Do not fear," "Be anxious for nothing", "Do not lust." Those are all matters of the heart. These kinds of verses are everywhere in the Bible. They decimate any sort of theology that portrays obedience as a flat-lined, apathetic, passive, heartless duty.

Granted, we don't have absolute control over our emotions, but apparently we have enough control over them to justify God's commands to stir up godly feelings. I find that I can choose what to think about and which thoughts to take captive. My thoughts are accompanied by feelings. I can choose to dwell on thoughts that make me anxious, depressed, discouraged, angry. Or I can ponder things that put me joyfully at rest. The point is, I'm not a slave to my emotions, I'm in the driver-seat.

All of this is relevant to our understanding of love. Look at this verse: 1 Peter 1:22 says "fervently love one another from the heart." This verse takes love beyond the realm of hollow duty. It uses the word "fervently" which signifies warm, intense pathos. And if that's not enough, it drives the point home by telling us to love people "from the heart." It is a command to feel as we act. And we must never forget that it was Paul who said in 1 Corinthians that it's possible to give everything you have to the poor and yet not have love. God not only calls us to be givers, but cheerful givers, emotional givers, heartfelt givers. Givers who feel deeply.

The verdict is in, love is not to be faked.

Believe me, I realize that for some of the saps among us, love is all about feeling and nothing else. That is an unfortunate extreme that neglects the value of commitment and sacrifice. I'll be the first one to sound the alarm that love is much more than a feeling. However, there are others who need reminding that love is never to be divorced from feeling altogether. That is an equally unfortunate extreme.

Moral of the story: If we find ourselves hollowed out and bankrupt of feeling, then it's time to ask our Divine Lover to perform one more good ol' stinkin' resurrection on our behalf.

Love's Stage

My mom said that she always thought that I'd get married when I was 35 (I have some years to go). She didn't mean it in a bad way. She meant that I've always been very independant and so I'd probably opt to join forces with someone later in life. I'm beginning to think that her prediction isn't that crazy of an idea. Sometimes, I'm not sure if I want to get married because I'm supposed to or because I really do want to. I'm the kind of person that likes to sift through every iota of data with any decision, analyzing all of the pros and cons. I never did very well on multiple choice tests because I would take too much time scrutinizing and philosophizing about all the answers before filling in a circle. And even then I was never pleased with the wording of the answer, I could always find holes in it. Not only that, but I was never satisfied with how I filled in the circle.

Anyways, this is how I think about marriage. I weigh the pros and cons, and they in turn weigh me. Some of the pros of marriage seem to be: companionship, intimacy, maturity, and help. Another pro might be kids, but for some reason I'm not looking forward to having kids right now. I feel bad about saying that but it's the honest truth. Maybe that will change later on, maybe it's a desire that just hasn't been awakened yet. Anyway, some of the cons of marriage seem to be: less freedom, less space, and less time. Another con might be that I will never feel like I'm doing things right. I'm not sure that I want to live like that, with the feeling that I'm always failing. My fear of failure makes marriage seem so omenous, because so many marriages fail and men get such a bad rap these days. I have a fear that my wife will expect things from me that I just can't give her because I am only human. More than my fear that I might be unhappy is my fear that my wife would be unhappy. It's the most draining thing in the world to try to make someone happy who is determined to wallow in their unhappiness. I think I want to marry someone who is happy in their singleness. That way she won't expect marriage to make her happy, she will already be happy. So. . .why would she get married if she is already happy? Well, I am also happy in my singleness, so the question is similar to why would I get married? Well, if I believed that marriage was only about being happy then honestly I would not get married, because I am already happy. So, there must be more to marriage than that.

With marriage, I'm believing that there will be a point in time when my will coincides with God's will. When I will really want to get married and feel as though God really wants me to get married. Those stars have not aligned for me quite yet. I can't think of any other reasons to get married than those two. I can't imagine God forcing me to get married if I didn't want to. It would be like a dad trying to force feed his son with chocolate ice cream. Can you imagine that? "Son, if you don't eat this chocolate ice cream then you're going to get a spanking!"

There are those who believe life begins once you're married, and those who believe life ends when you're married. But I think that marriage is just a slice of life. It's one of the many wonders in this world. It's beautiful but it's not beauty, it's glorious but it's not glory. It is love's stage, but it is never love itself.

Nudity and Nakedness

You gotta love provokative titles. But this really is going somewhere. I've been meditating on the first love story in the Bible--Genesis 2. And the last line seems to unveil a divine element in marriage. It says "they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." This was before sin. It's interesting how sin came into the world and redefined nakedness, affiliating it with shame. To be naked is to be exposed for who we really are. Nakedness is openness, and we have a hard time being open with people. We show our best side and often hide our blemishes and imperfections, not only with our body, but also with our character and personality. Most of the time we are even apprehensive to really look in the mirror, staring into the depths of our soul and owning up to who we really are underneath the surface. It is a strange and alluring odyssey to undress the truth about who you are.

I look forward to nakedness in marriage, both the physical and the personal, the sharing of secret places within ourselves. I know that will take time but marriage seems to provide a safe place where two people can pry one another open and unearth gems within each other's personality. I think that self-discovery is overrated, it doesn't seem to lead anywhere. I think we long for someone else to discover us, to undress us. To really know us, the real us, and to be honest with us about who we really are. . .without shaming us. And of course this can only take place if there is mutual trust. I don't trust everybody, that would be dangerously foolish. I don't share the real me with just anyone. Trust is earned with the testing of time and shared trials. There is a part of me that remains covered and locked away for the one that I will marry someday. Only she will be entrusted with the key to that garden within me. That is one of the many good reasons to get married. To be commited to knowing one another more and more profoundly, the good and the bad and the messy. To be absolutely naked with someone and to be unashamed.

Where Romance Meets Reality

Romance. Reality. They are two seemingly separate worlds, posing as the north and south poles of life, but every so often they meet like an ocean lapping the land, like the split second between dreaming and waking. Maybe romance and reality are not such a paradox, maybe our eyes are crossed. Maybe we need both. Both to dream and to simply live. Even so, romance reminds us that there is more to this life than what we've lived, compelling us to turn the page. Romance sees promising beauty in the grit of reality. Romance takes the cadence of the mundane and composes a song. They are not so far apart. Reality is brimming with romance if you look close enough and long enough. It is most unfortunate that a realist is labeled a pessimist and a romantic is labeled an idealist, and the two don't get along very well. I need a steady diet of both. I want to be someone who doesn't live in denial of reality, but someone who is realistic enough to admit that there is a mystery below the surface of everything, a cavern deep enough and dark enough for romance to thrive. Experience is not always the best benchmark of what is really possible.

Question: Is God a realist or an idealist? An idealist sees the world as it could be or should be instead of simply accepting the way things are. In that regard, I would have to say that God is more of an idealist. He sees everything as it really is and yet he doesn't allow reality to lower his expectations. God thinks in terms of the impossible and the miraculous. It's interesting that God knows the future and yet in His communication with humans He still speaks in terms of what could be or should be, even though He knows what absolutely will be. If that's not idealism then I don't know what is. And if God is more of an idealist then He is closer to being a sanguine romantic rather than a dour realist.

God still surprises me. You wouldn't expect to find erotic literature within the pages of a Holy Bible. And yet there it is-- the Song of Solomon, holy pillowtalk. It's hard to believe that our God is the same God who invented kissing and sex and breasts and then published a book about it without blushing. It's impossible to read that book and conclude that God is against romance, in fact He seems to take it rather seriously. But of course, romance is much more than all of those things. When we think of romance we may even think of candlelight dinners and sparkling wine and delicate music and poetry and dancing. And yet romance is more than the sum of its parts. For me, it is even more than being with a girl. Romance is an invisible sun that kisses the heart. Be that as it may, some have given up on romance altogether while others are drunk on it. Excessive extremes are seldom ever healthy, even though people often gravitate to one or the other. Secular culture has exagerated romance to the point of eclipsing reality, so in turn the church has responded by writing off romance and relegating it to the scripts of Hollywood. But why should Hollywood have custody of such a divine treasure? Hasn't God come to "make all things new?" Could even romance be redeemed by Jesus? I hope so, because although my faith in romance often wanes, I must admit that romance revives my spirit, quickening my senses so that reality seems more real. Not that feelings are always an accurate compass, but feelings certainly accompany a soft heart. To divorce ourselves from feeling deeply is to stop being human. When all colors fade, romance restores my fascination with the universe. Without romance, the moon is just the moon, but when I look with romantic eyes then that silver ornament becomes a captivating work of art, worthy of poetic appraisal. You see, romance is not at odds with reality, romance savors every bit of reality, while appreciating its higher meaning and raving about the Artist.

Anyway, I don't mind being called a romantic, but I don't think that I'm a hopeless romantic. Afterall, romantics seem to be the last people on earth still clinging to hope against all odds:)

Arranged Dating

Truth be told, I wrote most of this about 3 weeks ago but hesitated to post it. Mostly because I was becoming increasingly concerned that this blog could be mistaken for some sort of personal ad or cry for help, which couldn't be farther from what I set out to do. I wondered if it was an omen when I noticed that even an online dating company had left a comment under one of my posts. Oh well. . . .


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Sometimes the idea of an arranged marriage is very appealing. Like in the good ol' Bible days. Back when people married less for love, and more for socioeconomic advantage or for diplomatic reasons. Couples would be betrothed to each other at a young age, via their parents, and then groomed for their predestined wedding day. What a relief that would be to have those hair-pulling decisions completely out of your hands. Who to marry? When to marry? There is a part of me that likes control and there's a part of me that loathes it. To be completely in control of your life means that you are the only one to blame if things don't turn out well. In the land of liberty, sometimes freedom of choice feels like a curse to the picky and the fickle among us. To be perfectly honest, I am terrified of marrying the wrong person. Or being the wrong person for her. But more than that, as much as I pray about it, I'm wary of missing the right person. Yet in a way, all of this is not just up to me, because ultimately there will be a girl involved who has to make a lifelong decision as well. And then you have friends and family and even random strangers who are glad to offer their omniscient opinions on the matter. Still, an arranged marriage sounds inviting. Someone might say that God is arranging my marriage and I would wholeheartedly agree. And yet it's not quite the same, because alas, I still have a big decision to make.

It's interesting that psychologists have found that the more choices we are presented with, the more unhappy we are. The reason being that when we choose something, we worry that we didn't make the right decision, which causes stress. So the more choices we have then the more opportunity we have for mistakes and regret. So, we are actually more happy if we have less choices. Hence, the appeal of arranged marriage. However, the irony is that we love our freedom of choice, and we love to keep our options open. Hence, the aversion to arranged marriage.

The funny thing about my trepidation is that I'm not even dating someone right now. It's a classic case of putting the proverbial cart before the horse, and in this case, my horse is actually a winged unicorn that was last spotted flying over Nevada. Nevertheless, I've always felt that it's not right to date unless you're considering marriage. Hmm, maybe the answer is arranged dating. Maybe, arranged dating is the only hope for our gridlocked generation to jumpstart our love lives. All of the matchmakers out there are now pumping their fists and chanting "Amen!" But wait a minute, in order for it to be true arranged dating, then you'd need a fair and balanced liaison (and I'm not talking about a Fox-news reporter), someone who is a trustworthy friend to both parties involved. Otherwise, they'd have a one-sided agenda. Or you could have two liaisons working together, one representing the girl and one representing the guy. That would be closer to how an arranged marriage functions. In the case of an arranged marriage you have two sets of parents involved, which provides a system of checks and balances and equal representation. So. . .how much do you trust your friends? How well do your friends know you? Enough to let them decide who your next boyfriend or girlfriend will be?

An Apology To Married Folk

1st Ammendment or not, I would like to apologize to my married readers for my post entitled "What Is The Point of Marriage?" But I'm not exactly sorry for writing it. I was simply posing some questions and processing out loud, which was the point for me starting this whole blog in the first place. I think it's a shame when people can't openly discuss otherwise taboo questions. Asking questions is the only way to learn. And I like to learn. But here's where the apology comes in. I'm sorry that I didn't complete my thought and I left some married people with the wrong impression. The challenge for writers is to get their tone right, and apparently I didn't. I came across as blithely disrespectful to people who have worked hard at their marriage and have stayed together for a long time. That definitely wasn't my intent. It seems that miscommunication is not always in the words you say but in what you leave out. I was simply trying to probe deeper into the meaning of marriage and what it means to have a good marriage. I was kind of poking fun at some of the platitudes, but I think some people took it personally. And rightly so, because marriage is a rather personal thing. Not to mention the fact that all of this is coming from someone who is single and has zero experience being married. Which is why I write as an inquisitive student, not as a teacher.

Anyway, I would like to honor my parents who have been married for 32 years. I was there for most of their marriage because I was the firstborn. I witnessed the whole 'happily ever after' firsthand. It wasn't perfect, but it was real and alive. When I look at their marriage now, I see lustrous gold that has been refined in life's fire. I think their marriage is better than it's ever been, filled with a tempered peace and joy that had to be fought for. God's fingerprints are all over it. I know that many married couples stay together for the kids and I am so grateful that my parents loved us enough to keep us all under one roof. I truly believe that they have a successful marriage, a marriage that is about staying together but also so much more than that. It's about love.

Friending

"I think we should just be friends." Those words have always loomed as a guillotine to any romantic interest. Their weight has crushed many hopeful hearts. They're meant to soften the punch, but they always feel like the kiss of Judas. Just friends? That's it? Well, I have more than enough friends, just look at my Facebook page! But at second glance, I'm beginning to see that I've underestimated the value of friendship in the realm of romance. I've always segregated the two. Now that I think about it, I'm quite the dunce, after all she is called a girlfriend.

I've heard many people say that you should marry your bestfriend. I realize now that my perspective on love had always been so unrealistic and immature that that sage advice never made sense to me. But now I actually believe it. Micheal W. Smitty was right when he sang those ol' campy words "Friends are friends forever if the Lord's the Lord of them." Romance comes and goes, but friendship remains. In 2 Samuel, David said of Jonathan "Your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women." Apparently, what David had with Jonathan and didn't have with women was a deep friendship. Yet, I think it is possible to have that kind of friendship in a marriage.

As I'm trying to decide what kind of a person I should marry, what I'm really doing is deciding on what kind of a friend I want to have for the rest of my life. I now realize that the qualities that I look for in a friend are very similar to what I am looking for in a wife. I think that he who finds a true friend finds a good thing. So the question is what is a true friend? I think that wedding vows mirror the covenant of a true friendship--"for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, till death do us part." A true friendship is unconditional. A sincere friend will love you through your insanity, your failure, your crap. When your world falls apart they will help you put it back together. You can lay down your armor around your friends and know that you're safe. You share a language of unmasked honesty. A good friend is a vault for your secrets, and will go to battle for you when anyone speaks ill of you. A real friend enjoys your God-given personality, quirks and all, and they won't try to change you into someone else. They believe in you, they invest in you. You are on a journey together and will never leave the other behind, come what may. You will both fight for the friendship as if you are fighting for your very lives. You will wrong each other and you will forgive gratuitously because the friendship is more important than being in the right.

I now realize that venturing further into friendship is to be on my way to sublime love. Jesus said "No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for a friend." That's as good as it gets, finding someone who will die for you, and you for them. In hindsight, I've known a lot of people, but I've had few real friends. Some friendships aren't really friendships, some "friends" just take and take and they'll stick around as long as you give them what they want, or be who they need you to be. Oddly enough, it is very possible to build a relationship on selfishness, where there is an unspoken agreement that if certain conditions aren't met then love will be withheld. But that's not love, and that's not friendship. Anyway, I hope to marry a real friend. Or rather, I hope to be a real friend to her. It goes both ways. As the ancient proverb says "He who desires friends must himself be friendly."

What Is The Point of Marriage?

Our generation's version of love is broken. The well is poisoned and we all keep drinking from it. When something like marriage is working less than half the time, it is in need of more than minor adjustments. As a culture, this calls for a massive, messy gutting. This calls for a complete reprogramming in the way we understand love and relationships. If we stubbornly keep venturing farther down the same road then we are going to get the same results, it'll just get worse.

It's odd to me that most married couples seem to gauge the success of their marriage simply based on how many years they've been married. Each anniversary is another gold star. If they've been married 30 years, then it's considered a success by most standards and everybody claps. But to us singles, it always sounds like they're riding a mechanical bull, and that it's all about how long you can stay on. Apparently, you're supposed to get married and then just hang on for dear life as you're whipped around and whoever stays on the longest wins. At least that's the impression I'm left with. And when that's my impression, it makes me wonder if I really want all that added turbulence in my life, it sounds nauseating. Afterall, marriage is not a command, it is an option according to the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7. Some people portray marriage as if it is a trial that you volunteer for. They speak of marriage as if it is God's instrument of torture to make you a better person. However, I'm not convinced that that was God's intent. If that's the case then it seems like some sort of nasty prank. I always thought it was supposed to be a blessing. Nevertheless, life presents plenty of character-building trials whether or not you're married.

I wonder if marriages are failing because many are unclear about the point of marriage. If we don't know the vision, then we don't know the goal, and we have no reference for success. And at that point, we reduce marital accomplishment to the number of years a couple stays married. Once again, we only consider a marriage to be a failure if divorce happens. And again, that criteria seems funny to me because we wouldn't evaluate the excellence of someone's life simply based on how long they managed to stay alive. To be fair, relationships are difficult to assess on paper. We like our numeric systems. And so we measure relationships using years as a unit. That way we can put in into Excel and add it up and graph it.

Be that as it may, this brings me back to my initial question: What is the point of marriage? I have some thoughts of my own, but I want to leave it up for discussion. . .what do you think? Is it to help us understand Jesus's love and commitment toward the church? Is it to help us serve God better? Is the point to have sex and "be fruitful and multiply?" Is it to make us happy? Is it a self-improvement method? Is there something else to it? In addition to my first question, what do you think God deems as a good marriage?

What Do You Think?

Last night, a group of us were talking about dating and marriage. It's always a topic where everyone has something to offer and something to learn. I learned that a girl wants a guy to tell her right away if he is at all interested in her. That was news to me, I guess I always thought that I had to have my feelings clearly defined and my intentions mapped out before having that talk. But apparently I was wrong.

It's curious to me that even though dating and marriage are such a big deal, God didn't give us a whole lot of instructions about the whole thing. There is so much left to the imagination, so many questions unanswered, so much room for so many mistakes. We are like children playing with sharp objects. How do you know who's right for you? Is there one right person for you? How do you know if you're in love? What's the right way to go about dating? What's the difference between "pursuing" someone and stalking someone? Most people have passionate opinions about all of this, and its difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Recently, something shifted in my heart and I think it's good. Something settled. It dawned on me that I've been looking for someone that doesn't exist. This whole time I've been looking for a girl who's perfect. I've never met her and I never will because nobody's perfect. And the more I think about it, it would be a terrible idea to marry someone who's perfect because it would make me feel like the beast in the relationship. And why should I expect that other person to be perfect when I'm not even close? I've realized that I've had a double standard. It's actually quite selfish, come to think of it.

Anyway, rather than killing the romantic inside me, I'm forcing him to look long and hard at the real world. It seems like we've bought into the idea that being "in love" is initially the most important thing for developing a satisfying relationship. But I'm beginning to question that whole concept. I'm not sure that it's real. What if falling in love is not like winning the lottery or being struck by lightning? What if falling in love really is a choice? What if it is something that you invest in and work at and master?

We live in a culture where we think we are always the victims and we are always shifting the blame. Especially when it comes to love and relationships. We see love as something that happens to us. And so we wait for the day when the stars align and we are kissed by a love that wakes us from our slumber. But maybe it's within reach, maybe it's not somewhere out there but maybe it's within us. Maybe it's not something that you wait for, but maybe it's something that you work toward. And maybe it has less to do with the other person than we think. It's funny how each one of us think that we are the main character in our love story, and we just assume that the other person will be glad to play a supporting role. It's interesting how celebrity marriages don't look all that different than normal marriages. Everyone's got a celebrity complex in some way.

These days I try to imagine myself married to this or that girl. God sometimes gives me a glimpse of a possible future. But often times it's not too far removed from the present. It seems that the present is a peephole to the future. In the realm of relationships, I take a close look at my friendship with a particular girl. If there is frustration or confusion or drama in the friendship right now, then that will most certainly be a liability in a future marriage. It's not anything that we couldn't work out but it's just good to be aware of those things beforehand so that I know what I'm getting myself into. On the other hand, if there are special blessings about our friendship right now, then those would also carry over into our marriage.

I've been weighing which is more valuable, peace or passion in a relationship. Peace in the midst of all this chaos is so beautiful it's haunting. When there is peace, you just know that God is there, the One who calms storms and silences demons. I think if I had to choose between peace and passion then I would choose peace in a relationship. Maybe that's not a popular choice, but I've never really trusted the majority vote. Not that I don't want passion, I do. But feverish passion has never been a reliable compass for me. For me, the peace of God has always fullfilled its promises. It seems like all the good marriages have lots of peace and all the bad ones have lots of passion. Often, what begins as a swooning blaze ends up burning down the house. I've never heard of peace doing any damage. For the record, I love passion and I consider myself to be passionate. Actually passion comes easy for me. But peace is something that is harder to come by, and that's why I want it.

To Wait or to Date? That is the question

I'm always surprised to find out who reads these crazy blogs. It includes everyone from those who are single to those who are married to those who are divorced to those who are well-acqainted with the status of "It's complicated." I've also recently learned that I have readers from Japan, Indonesia, and Brazil. So apparently I've gone international, but I won't let myself get a big head, mainly because I still want to fit into my favorite hat. It's a good hat. One time I was driving down the freeway and it blew out of the window. So I pulled over and played Frogger with the high-speed traffic in order to retrieve it. I also think it's funny when my friends tell me not to include our conversations about love in my blogs. They fear the power of the blog, and rightly so.

Anyway, we all have something in common. That is love. What we also have in common is that we are all wide-eyed students when it comes to love. It's something we yearn for and yet we are never quite sure exactly what it is. We are all discovering love. Most of us know that we want love, and yet since we don't fully know what it is then we don't know what it is that we want. The problem is that love gets bigger as you get closer to it. There are no experts, except for God. I think I would have to be God in order to understand love. An attempt to define love is an attempt to define God. You can't do it.

I know so many singles who are praying for a relationship. It's fascinating how we singles are the answer to our own prayer. If we all just paired off then the problem would be solved. But I know that it's more tangled than that, because we all have been taught that there is only one right person for us somewhere. I'm not sure where we got this information, probably from Disney, and we all seem to believe it. And so we wait and wait and wait. Someone is waiting for me and I am waiting for her. We are simply trying to find each other, as if we are in a pool full of people playing "Marco Polo" but everyone is calling out "Marco!" and nobody is saying "Polo!" Waiting has replaced dating. We wait for our Eve, we wait for our Adam. It seems a little less than fair that Adam and Eve were perfect and sinless, and really they didn't have any other dating options at the moment. What an easy decision! It was a classic case of Adam looking at Eve and saying "Me Tarzan, you Jane." But we continue to hear the horror stories about marriage and how catastrophic it is when two people are wrong for each other, and so we wait and wait and wait. Everyone is telling us to wait, but they don't really tell us what we are waiting for and so we wait and wait and wait. At the end of the day it feels as if you've been stood up by a stranger. It feels like waiting for a bus that you don't know the number of, and you don't know where it's going, but somehow you're supposed to know it when you see it and get on before the doors shut. And the buses just keep huffing by as you wait. There are those of us who feel like we've waited this long, so why not wait a little longer? Just in case. And so we wait and wait and wait.

It sounds like I'm chiding waiting, but I'm really not. It is a Biblical concept to wait on God and it an extremely wise thing to do, especially when it comes to marriage. I'm simply commiserating. But it does seem like anything that God calls us to is ultimately a step of faith and obedience and the conditions are never perfect, it's always a bit risky. With God, our obedience is not to be based on ideal conditions but on our trust in Him. And so I just want to challenge my readers as I am being challenged to yield my demands and ideals to the Lord and ask Him "Who do you want me to be waiting for? I trust You."

We are a generation that has grown up in very safe conditions, for the most part. Our culture has mastered the art of safe with all of its safety precautions. We are accustomed to the predictable, and the unknown seems to be off limits. Sometimes, I wonder if we're losing our sense of daring adventure. Somewhere deep within us there are primal instincts that only awaken to the occasion of danger and risk. Relationships are highly explosive and are to be handled with the utmost care. Dating will never be safe. All that passion and all those dreams colliding can do much harm or much good. But again, eventually it will involve a step of faith. And God will be the one calling out "Polo!" We find our Eve or Adam by seeking God. So we are not waiting as much as we are seeking. It is not idle time but an active pursuit of our First Love.

1 + 1

I know that life will change when I get married, but there are many things that I currently do that I will still be doing even when I'm married. For instance, right now I'm at Noah's Bagels drinking coffee and eating a bagel and stalking friends on Facebook. I think I would still be doing this even if I was married and my bagel would taste just as good. The only thing that might be different is that I would probably also be swapping texts with my wife, with lots of smiley faces and romantic innuendos and making plans and such.

I do look forward to the day when I don't have to have my antennas up anymore, on the lookout for the one, constantly asking myself "What about her?" When that question is settled, I will have so much more brain space, I think I will be much smarter. Yeah right. Most likely, I will be faced with more enigmatic questions about love and I will probably feel dumb all of the time. Whenever I've been in a relationship in the past, it's always been somewhat of an unsolved mystery, a hallucinogenic riddle. Right now, I'm not in a relationship and I do feel free. In a relationship, you do give up some liberties in order to have other liberties. But what is freedom? Being dragged around by only your desires, isn't really true freedom. That sounds more like slavery. Maybe, real freedom happens when you completely give yourself to someone else. That's how it works with God. You give up your life and you gain eternal life. You thought you were free before and then you realize that you didn't even know what freedom was because you'd never experienced it.

I marvel at how Jesus said that in marriage "the two become one." It's like you become siamese twins. Two worlds collide, two stories coalesce, two destinies merge. You become so intertwined that life without the other person doesn't seem like life at all. You find out that competing with each other is futile because you're both on the same side. If you win an argument then you actually lose in the end, because their loss is your loss. If you insult her, then you are actually insulting yourself, because you are both one. I pray for a marriage where we are fighting for one another, instead of fighting each other. It would be such a travesty if we used all of our passion and strength against each other, instead of combining our efforts to do wondrous things for the kingdom of heaven.

I have to admit, sometimes, life without love seems much simpler. But that is impossible. We love no matter what. If there is noone else to love then we just love ourselves more. But self-love leads to self-destruction, because true love is meant to be given away.