While on this little solo-retreat, i.e. paid business trip, I have been rejoicing in the time to ponder life. There’s nothing like alone time. Over the last year or so, due to facebook, roommates, job, church, community, volunteering, etc, etc, I seemed to have forgotten the value of alone time. Hearing the heart time – your own and God’s. There’s especially nothing like alone time when the sound of crashing waves is the background. Beautiful.
So, as I was saying, I’ve been pondering. Yesterday I had the deep yet tangible desire to be loved. Now, don’t get me wrong, I always want to be loved. Who doesn’t? But, yesterday, I had somewhat of an epiphany. For, perhaps the first time in my life, I was acutely aware of the fact that I would trade and want to trade all the flattery, compliments, looks, glances, attention…from all the men in the world for the real love of one man.
I have a feeling that this is normal for most women and that I am just a late bloomer. As a matter of fact, I can remember having slight anxiety attacks while in past relationships because I would have the ridiculous thought of, “What if this is it? All flirting and flattery will end. All the security I get from these silly types of attention from the “others” will end and I will be stuck with just one.” Now, I realize the ridiculousness, immaturity and insecurity behind that line of thinking/fearing, but I is who I is. That is simply where I was.
Now, the purpose of this note is not to do some self-analysis (Trust me, there’s been plenty of that in my life. Too much I’m sure) and confess all of my jacked up relational thoughts and fears.
The point of this is to share both of my epiphanies with you. Yes, there are two, one giving birth to the other. Or maybe the latter birthed the initial, but in secret ways.
Focus, Heather, focus.
Okay, so that first epiphany, as elementary as it probably sounds to most of you, was so meaningful to me. I had an intense sense of “Yes. Yes! That is true. I would trade it all for the real love of one man.” Now, before you judge me as desperate, let me clarify that this was not about having someone, anyone love me. This was about a realization that began in the soul and not in the mind. It hit me like a ton of bricks – only the kind that knocks you into a soft cloud of peace. I had to stop, pray and tell the Lord that I was ready. I was ready to lay down all the shallow things that make me FEEL lovable; the things that make me feel as if one man COULD love me. I was ready to lay it all down and trade it for one man who truly does love me.
Strange? Yes
A huge turning point for me? Indeed.
Now, this first epiphany swelled up in my head and heart various time over the last 24 hours and I pondered it and dwelled on it and talked to God about it. About why it took my 34 years to get there and why I’ve relied on “proof” from men (plural) to give me hope that one man could someday love me.
So, that’s revelation number one: what I really long for, to be loved my a man, only requires one thing: one man’s love. Not a plethora of flattery or desirability by men, any men.
Anyway, that’s enough of that…
So, tonight I was flipping back and forth between Ephesians and Philippians (for no apparent reason, other than God’s sweetness) at which point the second ton of bricks knocked me into another pillow of peace and awe.
In Philippians, Paul is talking about how the things in which he used to put his confidence, his birthright, his keeping of the law, etc, etc were meaningless and how he traded them all (died to them all) for the knowledge of the love of Christ. How grace and real love from God were the real thing and the rest were only meaningless attempts to “prove” that God could and would love him.
As I was reading this, I kept thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is me. This is exactly what God’s been showing me about the man thing. I, like Paul, see the futility and ridiculousness of needing and wanting and trusting in the meaningless, impotent confidence gained from the masses. And, indeed, what I longed to know, that a man could love me, would only be known when a man (one man) did indeed love me. And, like Paul, I now consider it all rubbish.”
So, that was grand but that was not the end.
I began thinking of the reverse. What if my reading from Philippians was not insight into my man thing, but what if my ‘revelation’ about the man thing was insight into the truth of Philippians: that the way I long for one man’s love is a picture of the way I could, I should, I want to long for Jesus’ love. A picture of how I look to so many things to assure me that I’m loved and satisfied and full when in reality there’s only one thing, one Man, that can not only assure me of these things, but actually provide them. And the effort to get those things thru any other means is just a meaningless and impotent source of false-confidence that no more delivers than the attention of many men delivers true love.
It doesn’t end there…
So, that took me back to Ephesians to all that jazz about women submitting to their husbands and husbands loving their wives, yada yada. (BTW, I think I finally understand those versus in the context of us being one body, but that’s for another day.)
What grabbed me like a barbed wire girdle (as my grandmother used to say) was the verse that says, “And for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” Right below that Paul says he’s talking about Jesus’ relationship with his church (also known as his wife). Note, it’s the husband who leaves and note that the two become one flesh. SO, Jesus, being the husband, left his Father and his comfy home and came to “cleave” to us (his wife, his church) and we literally became one flesh with him.
As if that wasn’t enough, just look to the versus above this where Paul talks about a man loving, nurturing and cherishing his own body and that this is what husbands should do to their wives because now the wife is, indeed, part of his own body. That’s what Jesus does! We are literally part of his body and as part of his body, He loves, nurtures and CHERISHES us. No wonder Paul would give up all the silly, useless things he has been depending on to “gain” God’s love. He’s got it all, in the real form, in Jesus.
That’s what I want.
Only true love can prove true lovableness and if the love of Jesus, as described above, ain’t true love then I don’t know what is. Now, if my first Husband would go ahead and give me the second one that'd be just fine with me.
Loved, nurtured, cherished. That is me.
