What it is
To think about what fills your mind the most, what crazy, obsessive thing makes your writers mind click and move forward, or stall and circle the area over and over and over again, can lead one to truly wonder about why they are the way they are.
For me, it is constantly romance. Once or twice, it is adventure and daring and heroism and fantasy, but mainly and primarily, it is romance. Constant romance. And that, in and of itself, is quite telling as I have never experienced romance in my life firsthand.
That isn’t being completely truthful. I was romanced by the Author of romance Himself. Those days were joyous and full and bright and satisfying. I think it was due to that romance that I developed a much deeper desire, a desire for more than what the movies and books offer.
Currently, is that what is filling my mind? No. Right now, it is the foolish book romance, the romance that fizzles out once the love is expressed, the kind where the ‘happily ever after’ is wrapped up in a two page Epilogue at the end of the book. It’s not seedy or sexual or any thing of that nature, but it is shallow and vapid and randomly unsatisfying. So why is it circling my head and buzzing so loudly?
The call on my life to be a Pastors wife still exists. How can it not? Though I have struggled and battled and resigned and committed and refused and repented, I have never, not once, heard God tell me that He had not called me to that. It isn’t a moment of doubt, it is rather a moment of thinking about the pieces that have to be in place and seeing, quite clearly, that most of the puzzle is still in the box. So, what do I do? I dream.
I dream of those romantic scenes, where you truly feel beautiful and valuable and worthy of a love worth fighting for, or, better yet, being a love worth fighting for. In this day and age, it is expected for women to care for themselves, to seek out careers and self-reliance, and though I have no desire for us to be brow-beaten and considered property, there are days, truly, when I’d like to be a damsel in distress, rescued by a knight in shining armor, and carried away to live all my days as his wife. But, reality takes me closer to the truth. I want to be a helpmeet, I want to bless his life as he will bless mine, to be able to support him and stand beside him, to offer my gifts and talents and to be appreciated and seen for who God has spent so long making me to be.
I want to be worthy of the call God has on my life.
So, I was thinking about romance and I was thinking that maybe I should write a short story with the vapid, waste of time, romance that has been filling my mind lately and that was what this originally started out to be. The amazing thing is, I was interrupted and now my brain has changed lanes and I realize that, though I am truly a hopeless romantic at heart, a well-guarded secret about me, there is only one way to satisfy the longing that fills my heart. And that is through acknowleding who Jesus truly is.
Jesus is my Beloved. He is so much more than that, too. He is my Best Friend, my Comforter, my Protector, yes, even my Knight in brilliantly shining armor. He is my Confidante, my tender Refiner, and my Hiding Place. He is the One that sets my heart aflutter with one word, the One that sees deep into me and still calls me beautiful, He is the One that removes all the stained clothes and garbs me in regal gowns of the purest white. He is the only One that can correct me in the midst of my failings and not leave me feeling empty, a failure, or worthless. He is the only One that sees my compromises and tells me He loves me without any conditions attached. He has never told me that He loves me and added a ‘but’ to the sentence. In those intimate moments, when He says He loves me, that is all He says. He never attaches requirements to His love, never tells me anything negative, all of His words are there to bring growth, change, and peace to this wretched life.
Though it has been years since I have said so, Jesus is my Lover. I am His Shulamite. And, I am not ashamed.
To take the passion from Song of Songs and truly live it is something I have yet to do. Though I came close, so very close, to doing so, Jesus showed me that I was content to live out the romance on the pages…as long as it remained on the pages.
Come alive in me, Song of Songs, and may I truly enter into the chambers of my Lover and know Him, for I am thirsty, thirsty, thirsty for real romance and only One can give me what my heart and mind and soul and life and spirit craves. Come, Jesus, and dwell within Your garden, delight in the fruits that have grown here, drink Your milk and Your honey…it is for You alone to enjoy.
