Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Love is an ever fixed mark...

We have trivia night on Sunday night to kick off the new semester, so I have been trying to find some really good trivia questions. One of the rounds is "Film and Books," I love the movies and I love books, so I am sure it will be no surprise. 

The final question of the round is figuring out who wrote these words:
     "Love is not love which alters when alteration finds,
       Or bends with the remover to remove:
       O no! It is an ever fixed mark
       That looks on tempests and is never shaken."

Love. If you asked people around me they would probably say that love, through my eyes, is defined by what is found in storybooks. They would say I have my heads in the clouds and that I have unrealistic ideas about love. I was even accused of sounding like I had just stepped out of a movie once. Like I said I love books and movies, but I know love does not exist in the way it is portrayed in film and books. Love is more than that. Love is knowing the faults, yet loving anyways. Love is doing something that you don't really want to do so that the one you love can do it with you. Love is being quiet and listening to your loved one rant and when they are done, not trying to fix it. Love is putting someone else's needs before your own. Love can be unfair, it can hurt horribly if it goes wrong, and it can scar you for a while. Love can also heal the scars left behind. Love is beautiful and amazing. Loving someone can make you feel more alive than you have ever felt before. Love is protecting someone you love. Love is life. Love isn't like the movies it's better. Love is real and raw. Love is sticking together no matter how hard times get. Love is communicating even if means an argument, but love is also making up. 

All through my life I have watched love. Starting with my parents, who love each other when they hit rock bottom and when they are mad or happy. I saw families where the love simply disappeared, and the heartbreak that goes along with it. I have seen the love of a wife as she waits for her husband, surrounded by their family and friends, to come out of heart surgery. I have watched the love that my grandmother had for my grandfather as he died while she held his hand. I have seen older couples who continue to enjoy love and make it a part of the spice of life. I have learned a lot about love, but mostly I have seen it from God. Not just in the death and life of God's son but also in the grace and forgiveness that I see everyday. God has shown me how to love better than anyone else. Love is forgiveness.

I have thought a lot about love lately. I dream of the day I fall in love again and hopefully this time will be the last. I think about him often. What does he look like? What does he sound like? What does he do? What is his name? What is his family like? Will they like me? Does he like to dance? Does he want a big family? Who is this man that I dream of? Will he always simply be a dream?

Most of all thought I wonder if he would want to marry a pastor. When I made the decision to accept the call God placed on my life, I made it knowing that it would also be a calling that my husband and family would step into. I am scared that I won't meet someone that feels up to being a pastors husband. I mean, seriously, what man in their right mind would want to marry a pastor? 

Every night I pray for this man, for protection, for health, for hope. I pray that God would bring us together when "two hearts are ready" (now that is from a movie ;)). I pray that together we can be in ministry. I pray that God would continue to prepare me and him for being together. I pray that he will understand that I have accepted this call to itinerancy, and in marrying me he is accepting that call as well. I pray that together we make good choices for our family, and that he understands that I have prayerfully made the choices I have already made, and feel led to this. I pray for him.  

To the man that is the man in my dreams. I don't know who you are, but I know that I will always love you. I am excited about our future together and I know that one day we will meet, we will fall in love, and begin our new adventure together. Until then.... I will just keep dreaming! 

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