Nevertheless, I do try. When missing her threatens to decimate me, instead of curling up in a pathetic ball, I look for ways to remember her with a smile. Yesterday, I took out her phone and listened to her music. The very first song, "Iris", by the Goo Goo Dolls began to play. My only connection to this song is an old movie with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan. Cage, an angel, gives up his "angel status" to love Ryan. I wasn't crazy about the movie because it just doesn't line up with my beliefs. It's a nice message about sacrificial love. I just never thought human love would ever compete with what's in heaven.
I almost hit skip, but then the chorus came on...
I'd give up forever to touch you...
And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
I didn't think of the movie this time, or romantic love, or Taylor. I thought of a God who knows innately the pain of a broken world, how he "gave up forever" to be a man who feels, and how he wants desperately for me to know him instead of shards of brokenness. I marvel at the ways in which he reaches a heart that sometimes hides.
God knows there will be drunk drivers, hate, sickness that robs and evil that steals - that's why he makes himself known to us, that's why he encourages us to "hide his word in our hearts", and that's why he promises to be with us in the valley. I, personally, reject the thought that God takes us into deep waters to cleanse us. Deep water exists, so does God. The beauty of faith is not being kept safe from deep waters; it is choosing to believe instead of choosing to drown when the brokenness of this world leaves us treading water. It's choosing to gasp for air, or open your heart and listen, or rock numbly in the boat when that's all you can do, or paddle like hell toward home..
#golighttheworld