Tuesday, May 24, 2011

love.

It has been a while since my last blog...I tend to blog in waves. I've said before that one needs a certain emotion to write anything worth reading or singing and maybe I am just finding my way around the cycle of emotions. It's almost summer and there are so many new things knocking at my door. So many opportunities, so many challenges, so many questions. Something that frightens me but seems to be a pattern in life is the more we need God's direction, the less we talk to Him and the more time we spend wallowing in the midst of our finite thoughts.

Maybe I am alone here. Perhaps everyone else who keeps a running dialogue with the Almighty has it straight. Questions arise, life transitions, they spend more time in the prayer closet than when everything is a steady stream. At times even my periods of worship end up with me in silence, not enjoying the presence of God, but the uncertainty of my plight...swimming around in the spinning pool of my thoughts.

but this blog is supposed to be about love.

Here it goes. I'll be 26 in around 25 days. I'll be closer to 30 than 20, I'll be beyond the quarter of a century mark. My single friends have diminished to being able to count on my hands, and the majority of them are at least four years younger than me. My Facebook page has more baby photo updates than anything else, and I rehearse my answer to the question, "So Bre when are YOU getting married?" before every wedding or public event I attend.

All this being said I feel as though my life is filled with more love, passion, and emotion than almost anyone I've ever met. Tonight was the season finale of Glee and I watched Rachel Berry talk with so much passion about how she couldn't date Finn because when she graduated next year she was moving to  New York City and never coming back. She was determined to not give up on her dream of starring on Broadway, and despite her love for the boy, her real love was the stage. My mother and I couldn't help but laugh remembering my rational for breaking up with my high school boyfriend while I was in NYC because I had to move there, I had to follow out my dream.

Granted most think of Rachel Berry as an annoying TV character and the girl no one could stand in high school, nevertheless I think there is something very pure, honest, and direct about loving your destiny above all else. Yes, my passionate plans may have changed over the past decade. Where I am going isn't to be a news anchor and stage actress, but the passion, the drive, and the purpose in my life is the same. I'm determined to see my life's purpose accomplished. I'm driven to never give up.

That said, I still believe in love. I am an artist, and driven by strong, sometimes overwhelming emotions. Those who know me best are driven AWAY by these deep feelings. Joy that makes me hug complete strangers without warning, heartache that is so gut-wrenching I can't help but wail, even stress and confusion that makes my body physically ill. Overkill? Maybe. But my capacity to feel deeply I have no doubt will be a catalyst for accomplishing the Work I am on the earth to accomplish. Although I've grown up and harnessed these emotions to a great degree I can't help but wonder if maybe one of the reasons I've remained single all these years is the fear of what love could do to me.

C.S. Lewis, a kindred spirit from a different century once wrote, "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 carefully 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 be unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

Love, feeling, commitment, by any definition, is terrifying. I recently got a maltese puppy and have to admit have been wrecked by fear on more than one occasion at the thought of losing her. Yes, I am aware that she is merely a dog, but I love this dog more than a lot of husbands love their wives. Maybe it's the actress in me, but I do not believe in having half-felt emotions. If I am going to love, it has to be without abandon and maybe after 26 years that makes the idea of love terrifying. I consider how much I love my puppy who I know is temporary and cannot imagine the type of love I am capable of having for another human being. So perhaps by that token, maybe I am scared.

Two weeks ago an elderly man who was a minister for many years and now is a janitor at our high school filled the pulpit for my father. I have to admit, I was a little irritated he didn't ask me to preach, but the Sunday absolutely changed me. He prayed specifically for me in front of our entire congregation a the close of his message. Albeit, he began the message with the line, "Lord, someday someone will love her." (to chuckles of laughter by all) Then said he wasn't joking.

This man, who knows nothing serious concerning my personal life prayed the most prophetic word I have ever had spoken over me. That the Lord would bring someone into my life that would let me fly, let me be me, let me live out the call of God on my life. Someone who would understand the reason I live my life the way I do...

And after that prayer by an eighty-year old janitor, I believe I don't have to be afraid any more.

God has a big plan. It's bigger than me swimming in my thoughts...and why would I rush Him and cheat myself of experiencing an emotion greater than anything I could ever experience by finding someone on my own??


.