Reflecting on Love

" To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it careful 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...The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell." -C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Our God is so faithful. I think of my own life and how he has continuously pursued me, relentlessly intent on capturing my heart. He has quieted my life so as to reveal himself to me in ways I had never imagined. In finding out who he is in my life, my savior, my lover, my creator...I have begun to find out who I am. Who he has called me to be. He is answering the deepest of questions in my heart...He has called me lovely. This morning I was reading a psalm that seems to capture just a moment of what the last few days have been between me and my lover.

"Beautiful words stir my heart.
I will recite a lovely poem about the king,
for my tongue is like the pen of a skillful poet.

You are the most handsome of all.
Gracious words stream from your lips...

Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart
what I say.

Forget your people and your family far away.
For your royal husband delights in your beauty;
honor him; for he is your lord. " Psalm 45:1-2,10-11

Sometimes we must be completely still to hear His voice,
to be sensitive to his touch and open to his will.
Thank you Lord for this time of renewal,
for the healing waters that flow through me.
Thank you for opening my heart to the hope of tomorrow,
to the promise of restoration.
And so I will dare to love...deeply.
I will build relationships which encourage, uplift and inspire.
I am at rest in the beauty you see in me,
in the beauty I now see in myself.
I will strive no longer for what this world has to offer,
for in you alone I am complete.