Dear Jesus...Let these words glorify you and only you in all that they say and mean.
Love? To love...well dear, I don't know completely what that means! I do know what it is to love my brother, or sisters, or parents, or friends. But to be "IN" love is another manner of emotion. Or is it emotion? Or does it matter :o) Perhaps that is the question. I have been considering what it is I am looking for in a...well a mate if you will. What do I want in the person with whom I am going to spend the rest of my life? (no divorce here :o) Malachi 2:6 says God hates divorce) I want to be so completly in love with that person that if she were completely unattrative in physical features, we never had intimate relationships, or anything of the sort, that I could still spend the rest of my life with her because I loved her (*S*) and her alone. I suppose that is what my ring breaks down to even more than what it seems on the surface. To those of you who don't know, I wear a ring that says in Hebrew "My beloved is mine and I am hers" (Song of Solomon 6:3) and it is my commitement to myself, my parents, God, and my future wife that I will not have sex until I am married. Weird? Yeah I suppose...but this is what I want more than anything...I want to be able to sit down next to my wife on our honeymoon and say, "I have not always known who you were or what you would be like or how this would all work out...or IF it would work out for that matter...But I did know that I would love you soooo much, that I would want to be able to say that I saved myself for you and you alone. For all eternity." And I want that to be true! I want to be so enthralled with her, that all of my hopes and fears and dreams and wants and loves and hates and desires revolve around the relationships that God has set up between us. THAT kind of relationship in marriage is what God has planned for those who look for it and I will NOT settle for anything less :) If this means that I end up living in the Andes, as a hermit, and never getting married, having a family, or even having sex...then God's will be done. Because I have faith that whatever it is that He has planed for me is SOOOO Incredible that I can not even begin to conjer up a dream that does anything but pale in comparission to the greatness of his desires FOR ME!!! Mattherw chapter 7 says, "Now if you son asks for a bird, will you give him a snake? Or if he asks for bread will you give him a stone? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to you children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?" YES! If the BEST thing I can think of is not even comparable to what God can do, why would I settle for anyless? and THAT love is what I will wait for! THAT life OF love will be worth the wait and so will be the person with whom I share it...
All for the Same, All for the Name,
Ryan
