Lying in the grass last Sunday afternoon, on the slope of yard next to the road, I turned my face away from the sun and away from Liz and Lavina lying next to me, closed my eyes. I wanted only to listen and not to talk, wanted only to feel the sun warm on my cheek and listen to their conversation. They are fifteen and seventeen, and their talk is joy to hear, like quick warm swallows diving, dropping, rising, touching wings.
But they would not let me lie in peace.
“Tell us something about you,” they said. “What do you want to tell us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have anything.” I scanned my mind for a safe subject, a secret I could tell, something that would seem to reveal much without actually revealing anything. It is hard to think of such a subject on short notice.
I could have told them that my heart was heavy like a stone, that the sun was a fever soaking into my body, that I only wanted to go into the house into my quiet dim bedroom and curl up and cry. I would have, if I did not want to be with them. I could have said that.
Why was I sad? No reason, really–which of course means it was a reason I don’t want to discuss. But it was a small sadness, gone before the day was done.
“Did you ever fall in love?” one of them asked me.
“Yes,” I said, and smiled, remembering.
“Really?” Lavina asked, surprised. “I thought you would be this good girl who always guarded your heart.”
I suppose I’ve read the same sorts of Christian dating advice that she has, and I used to try to guard my heart, back in the days when falling in love was something one did easily, like picking plump apples–the fully-matured ones that drop into your fingers–from a tree.
I gave up guarding my heart about the time I realized love doesn’t work that way. It is either a wild thing, unasked for and unashamed at the giving; or else it is a thing chosen, picked carefully from a wide array of choices, sheltered, nurtured, and given the best that one has.
I am not advising that one toss out one’s heart indiscriminately. It takes two to build a relationship. Be careful.
I am only saying that love cannot be meted out carefully–in a thin yellow line, only so much and no more–like mustard onto a hot dog, because then it would not be love. It would only be mustard.
None of my friendships, the ones that mattered, have worked like that, ever
In a friendship, there is first a beginning–an attraction, a common ground, a choice. Then there is kindness. Then there is a reaching forward and a going deeper. Then there is a conscious choosing to accept. Then there is trust. Then there is love.
I have never known any other sort.
“Do you think you’ll fall in love again?” Liz or Lavina asked me. I don’t remember which. They are so much a part of each other that what one says the other might just as well have said. There is real love for you. It doesn’t have to be romantic.
“I don’t know,” I said. Who can predict such things? “Not necessarily, but I’m not saying I won’t.” And I quoted them a line from Max Ehrmann’s poem “Desiderata.”
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is perennial as the grass.
:-)
As inexcusable as it is for someone my age and experience level, I ‘fell in love’ with a young woman that doesn’t return an ounce of the same feeling. That was a year ago now and a year of the worse emotional and spiritual turmoil of my life.
I’ve never been good at ‘the game’ or winning the initial attraction contest. I have terrible anxiety, lose the confidence I would otherwise have, and bumble around awkwardly. I had hoped my courage would win the day, that there would be something loveable in my effort, but, no.
Over the past year she has avoided me like the plague. Any chance of love reciprocated, let alone friendship, seems impossible. Yet, I feel so very strongly that she would like me if she knew me. I rushed in. I took her completely off guard. All I want now is to try again.
It’s an awkward sort of thing, isn’t it? But you can’t force it. If you are praying about your future, God has the right girl in mind for you. I think sometimes dreams that come true only make us miserable–we don’t know ourselves as well as we think, and even less the other person–but the things we never planned are the things that bring happiness.
That’s the problem, I really did believe I heard God’s voice and it has all become so intertwined with questions of faith that it is hard to know my up from my down sometimes. If there was something God ordained about who I would end up with this would be the one. But I fear I was very wrong.
Hearing God’s voice is a subjective thing.God does make Himself known to me or reveal His will at different times in different ways, and I am not discounting that. It is potent. But there was one time when I clearly felt God’s Spirit and misinterpreted what he told me according to my own desires. And there have been other times when I was very emotional and interpreted those emotions as God’s voice, when in retrospect I see it was probably just that–emotion. Emotion and desire can be tricky things.
Thanks for sharing Lucy! I have struggled much in this area of “love” and have come to realize that our hearts must first be consumed by Christ, who is the One and Only faithful lover. He alone can satisfy our longings, and desire for love, and acceptance. While people we thought we could trust will let us down, He wont!
Yes, Lydia! Amen to that.