To Be Perfected In Love

Today I was working on our wedding website writing my side of "our story" (the page will be up once Joshua has written his perspective). It got me to pondering a lot of things like how I came to realize Joshua is "the one." I ended up adding some of this into the story:

As humorous as our beginning is, there's really a lot of weight to it. I remember a time in the prayer house echoing a prayer I'd prayed a hundred times already. "Papa, is this You? I don't know how to be in a relationship halfway, so I need Your release. A no is a no, a yes is a yes, but I need something concrete. I want my heart to be MORE Yours, not less."
Clearer than clear I felt, "What do you want?"
"What do you mean? I just asked YOU that!"
"Rachel, I don't make your decisions for you. This is a relationship you and I are in. You choose to be with me just as I've chosen to be with you. Is this the man you choose to be with?"

That question rang in my heart for days. I laid in bed one night telling my roomie about the conversation, mulling it over, what did it mean, what was my answer. The truth I kept returning to was that in the highs of life -- enjoying simple things like cooking together or more extravagant joys like our wedding day or the birth of our children-- and in the lows --disappointments, disagreements, frustrations, miscommunications-- the choice would remain. I could not base my choice on feeling like I was in love, in like, whatever. Love is a decision, a resolution, a covenant. It grows deeper with time and richer with experience. That's why I don't buy into the "just wait till the honeymoon phase is over" propaganda. Life is, love is what you make it.

That was only the beginning of His revelations to me about relationship- relationship between man and God, man and woman, person and person. It's so deep, so sacrificial, so genuine. It is not about the individual but the two, the pair, the "us": interacting, loving, sinking low in order to raise another, the ups, downs, victorious days, and even the very human moments. As He shared His heart with me over the last nine months, I realized that Joshua was the choice I wanted to make. I wanted to build a relationship that was so solid it wasn't shaken by days lacking feeling or flowing over with emotion. Relationship is meant to be rich with life, love, covenant. Passion ebbs and flows, but it shouldn't cease. It moves and grows with life.

Choice. Choice, Choice, Choice. Choice. But how to love? Once the decision is made, sweet Jesus, how do I love? You're so Good at Love. It's Who You are, not what you do. How can I communicate the same Love You give to me to Joshua? Once again, He spoke, "Your decision to love will often be refined in the heat of moments, moments when you cannot love of yourself but of Me. But where your love will flourish most is with Me, in Me. Love Me. I am perfect Love. Learn to love an imperfect being by learning to Love me. I will always respond to your gestures, always tell you how beautiful you are, always have a kind word, and never respond out of circumstance. And view it this way, daughter. You can learn love from me and then practice it the way that I love you. I love you, someone who is growing, struggling, falling, and gaining. In that same way, you are given the opportunity to love Joshua. Be perfected in love."

In June I was reading the Rob Bell book "Sex God." In it he writes: "Your strength is a beautiful thing. And when you live in it, when you carry yourself with the honor and dignity that are yours, it forces the men around you to relate to you on more than just a flesh level. You are worth dying for." He ends up going on to ask a series of questions to the [female] reader about the man she's dating and if he makes her feel that way. As I read, I cried, realizing all those doubting questions were melting away.

Joshua is gold. He is so different from what I always imagined and he is everything I never knew I needed. I thank God for His sovereignty and precious love to know me better than I do, to give to me a way to love like He does and a way to feel the love that He has for me in yet another way. How blessed am I that the Love of my life cares for me so richly, so deeply, so unconditionally that He had it in His heart to share all of Joshua with all of me?

If you are chilly, here take my sweater
Your head is aching; I'll make it better
Cuz I love the way you call me baby
And you take me the way I am
-Ingrid Michaelson, "Way I Am"