She was on my mind today, and I was thinking about the day when I would be free to express my love for her. She is often on my mind, giving me pause to consider what it would be like to be her husband. I wonder about the normal times, when life is not a constant romance, the days when realities will take hold and run away with us. I don’t expect to experience the same constant rush of emotions, that wild heady feeling of the moment when I would look at her and think myself far richer than I deserve. Yet I yearn for the day when I can make it my life’s goal to achieve such moments, to make her feel as though she is most precious to me. I do not know who she is yet, but I will.
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I think we need to send you off to a monastery…
Don’t worry Jason, the feelings do subside. Actually, I guess they never subside, but your perception of them changes…
I have a theory about love and the expansiveness of the human heart. It goes like this: we have a set level of love we can give, we will call this the “normal level.” This is the amount of love that we can give normally. When we fall in love, or someone otherwise gets thrust into our hearts, there is this euphoric pain that we love to experience. This is the state of “being in love.” After a while, though, our hearts expand to encompass the person, and a new “normal level” is achieved. They remain a constant part of our lives from that point on, so much so that if they were removed there truly would be this empty place where that person was. I believe our capacity to love is expansive, but not entirely elastic.
Marriage affords us the opportunity to continue to expand that love through our ongoing relationship with our spouse and, if we are lucky, children. There are many times when I am “in love” with Alice, but there are also times where I just “love” her. There are also times where I look at Emily and tears fill my eyes as she embeds herself deeper and deeper into my heart. It’s both a painful and joyful experience. I can think of no other such masochistic experience that I enjoy so much as this, outside of a dentist’s chair.
Dittos, Jon.
sheesh… cant a guy be moody or mushy sometimes?
Not in a public setting.
That’s harsh… just harsh i say…
If it makes you feel any better, Jason, I feel the same way on occasion…
I like your theory Jason. It is true that Love is an attitude in which we grow. Like a muscle that must be worked and broken down before it can get bigger, our heart (the emotional one) must be continually stretched and broken that it may increase its capacity to love. It must be excercised.
One motivation that led up to the previous post, aside from a fit of moody art boyness, was the growing understanding that the time given to us before we assigned a responsibility should be used to prepare for it. Marriage is probably the second most important decision you will make, and not one you should make lightly. Someday I will consent to serve another person more than myself for the rest of my life. Although I am content for now, I do wonder and wish to be married. And whenever that thought comes, it is invariably followed by the thought that I must use what time I have til that happens to allow God to make me into a person who could give himself for her as Christ gave Himself for the church.
Love is a practice, more so than an emotion. We so often mistake the emotional rush that follows Love for Love itself.
Very wise words. I think that when the time comes for you to marry you will do it right. But maybe you should print this off and keep it around to remind you.