Some Insights into Love

      I could not sleep tonight after a few episodes of 'The Office.'  I went to bed, praying and pondering....I was pondering over the women I love in movies, but more accurately, the parts they play.  And I noticed that the women that came to mind were all very different, so I had to search for a common denominator...

     For example, 'Pam' in 'The Office', is very shy and subdued.  She is a secretary, timid, modest and sweet....and I just love her!!  I think that I would like to be more like her sometimes.  Why is that??

     Sandra Bullock in 'The Blind Side', plays a successful, rich, outgoing fireball.  She says whatever she thinks, and she is not timid at all.  She is intimidating!!  She is strong, and in that movie she is my hero and who I will come back as in my next life!!  But why is that?

     And in 'Notting Hill,' Julia Roberts plays the beautiful Anna Scott.  I like to watch the movie just to look at her, but she is selfish, flighty, strong-willed, tender, unpredictable and a super successful actress.  And I want to be her!!  Why is that?

     I thought, 'what do these women have in common?'  Are they all missing some significant character flaw, such as insecurity or jealousy?  What is it that makes them so captivating??

     Then it just hit me....all three are loved by men who love them for exactly who they are.  These women are loved for their secret, unique qualities that could be easily missed if one were not thoroughly undistracted.  And the love these men have for these women, makes you love them too.

     Then I immediately thought, if a mere man imagined by some Hollywood screenwriter is represented as loving a woman so beautifully, how much more does God love me???  I had never thought about love this way before.  What makes me so lovable is that God loves me just for me.  Love is so much more inspiring and intriguing when it exists in the midst of seriously flawed people!  God does not love me because I am strong or because I am not.  He does not love me because of my great sense of humor or lack of it.  God does not love me based on my physical beauty or the measure of my success.  Success, beauty, humor....it is all relative isn't it?

      Have not we all found a joke corny until the one we love tells it?  Haven't we all thought that an idea was ridiculous until the one we love is suddenly struck by it?  LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING!!  Haven't we thought someone unattractive until beauty poured from their eloquent lips?

     We are captivated by someone and all of a sudden, we reconsider everything we thought we knew.  And we love, we just love.  And that makes all the difference....

     Suddenly we become more patient in areas we had little patience before.  Waiting becomes less painful when we wait for the one we love.  We find kindness in our hearts that have harbored bitterness and resentment....our envious spirit is quieted and healed in the comfortable embrace of this new love because this new love invites togetherness and sharing...

     Suddenly it isn't about just me anymore.  We do not want to talk about ourselves. This love is so interesting, we only want to know  more and more.  And as we come to know more, we discover a new realm of ourselves and the goodness that exists within us is extracted from somewhere way down deep in a forgotten place.  And our pride is humbled in the face of this love which gives us peace.

      We suddenly want to be better people.  We no longer react to situations without logic.  Logic replaces our irrational tantrums we once entertained.  We have found the treasure at last and sold all to have it.  Selfishness has become a wellspring of emptiness.  Thank God!!  Selfishness was getting me nowhere!  And even though this love is not perfect and sometimes disappoints, it doesn't really matter because the blessings being poured into every crack and crevice of our lives  so far outweighs the unexpected twists and turns.  A life of giving and not receiving has been discovered, and we are fully changed by it. 

     This love has led to a rediscovered purity and rediscovered dreams.  You are celebrating what is good and thinking of new ways to do good for the one you love.  And evil loses its appeal completely to the point of hating what is evil.  You protect this love with fierceness and sweat beads against all evil that could possibly penetrate and destroy.  Your vision has become clear at last because of love.
      
      Suddenly trust has become a real possibility.  Trust was something you buried years ago.  Trust starts to rise up because this new love accepts you for who you are, no strings attached.  Rules and expectations have been reduced to mere words, and giving comes, not out of obligation, but out of gratitude....

       We believe again.  Love has become more real than breath.  And no matter what happens, failure ceases, and perseverance prevails.

        When this love is experienced, the thought of exchanging it is preposterous!  We would not exchange this love for the gift of unlocking all mysteries of the future and never having to take risks without knowing the outcome of our efforts.  We would not trade this love for the ability to speak in  a superior language that could be only understood by the beings of our choosing.  We  would not trade this love for possessing all the gifts of knowledge and wisdom of things we have dreamt of knowing but not the time to discover.  Because the most powerful voice of wisdom in the face of love is a faint whisper.  Being loved fully and understood fully and known fully by someone who is not scared to venture into the places we hide, and who laughs when we laugh, and cries when we cry, and  who picks us up when we have been foolish and kisses us on the lips, and rescues us and carries us when we are drowning in loneliness....that is worth so incredibly more than the voice of wisdom screaming in our ears and breathing down our backs...

       And finally, this love restores.  No matter the pain we have felt in the past, no matter the wrongs we have committed and have been committed to us that eat away at our souls because we are so fragile.....we are so fragile. This love washes it clean.  We come full circle and the pain is banished by the power of this love.  We are whole and we feel what it feels like to be untainted....the imperfections disappear forever...

      We once viewed ourselves as if looking in a mirror.  We saw a physical body weighed by worldly standards and a shameful nakedness.  We blinked and the mirror blinked back with eyes full of judgement and condemnation.....but love shattered the mirror by a force of eternity, of an eternal love.  And now a mirror is only a piece of broken glass, left behind by our transformation...

     No more living in the past, for this childish.  Faith replaces the journey that is behind us.  And no more living in the future and being full of worry.  No way!!!  There is no room for thoughts of such things in the present presence of this love.  Futuristic thinking has been replaced with contentedness....

      And love gave birth to it all.  Faith did not birth love and hope did not birth love, but love conceived faith and hope, and love conceived you.......
                                        inspired by 1 Corinthians 13.....