“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
I thought I was an open book until I met someone who sees me and loves me anyway. I did not realize how insecure I was until I had someone who accepts me and assures me of the opposite.
When I became a Christian in 2014, God purged my life of the things and people who could not continue on. He continues the cleansing of my life, and because of this, part of me seems to wait for the next ball to drop. “What will happen now?”
This is not a great way to live because, as Christians, we should live fully expecting God’s best in our lives and fully trusting Him to take care of us no matter what comes our way. ‘The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, but I’m tired of losing things. I have learned to mindfully pray after praying for wisdom, discernment, and patience at the same time. Wisdom is not doing that again. Someone I knew read the book of Job, closed his bible, and said, “Ok, Lord, let us get on with the program,” knowing he would have trials in life but knowing God would take care of him. He did not think he would relive Job’s life, and while I do not want to be sarcastic or mock anyone, I would not have chosen the book of Job to do that with.
WHAT A TANGENT FROM WHERE I MEANT TO GO.
I guess what I was getting at is I prayed for so long for a husband now that I am finally getting married and learning what love is. Love is apologizing. Love is repenting. Love is asking for forgiveness with tears in your eyes after letting anger get out of control. Paul says it much better than I can, so you know what I am getting at: Love is patient and kind. It is not jealous. It is not envious or boastful.
Love never fails. It can’t because God IS love, and He cannot fail. He is the keeper of His word and the perfect bridegroom. He continuously pursues us when we go astray. He saw us when we were at our worst, and He chose us with no rhyme or reason. “What is man that You are mindful of him?”
The same goes for a marriage. No rhyme or reason for why Ryan loves me or I love Ryan except the scripture that states what God brings together, no man can separate.
God has opened my eyes and heart to what His word says about marriage and shaped me into His bride and a godly wife. With that said, I am not married yet and have failed so many times! I can only pray to love Ryan the way Jesus loves the church, but know I am only human. I can only go so far and have no idea how people are married without having God at the center of their relationship. I honestly cannot understand that.
I knew since I met Ryan that he was the man I would marry. He is my heart’s desire, and I am saying this because we got into a pretty ugly argument, but relationships can only last through continual communication and grace. There is nobody else I would want to go through life with, and I pray to have many years with Ryan. While my nature wants to control everything and worry about making this happen, I simply cannot. God is in control of my life, and He has already set the course of it. My only job, which God has reminded me of through Ryan, is to trust God. Ryan called me out on my anxiety and wondered how I say I trust God when all I do is worry, and he is correct. It snapped me into reality and forced me to confront myself.
I do not know what my future looks like as far as where I will live or what I will be doing, but the book of James already covered that topic:
“Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” – James 4:13-17
Beloved Oath of God 