Love fiercely.

I had this girlfriend once: ferociously gorgeous, classically modest yet stunning to my soul. She's gregarious and loves people, super insightful, fearlessly creative and massively complex. She can be thick-headed at times, but is tender-hearted at her core. And though not perfect, she is perfect for me (hope I sustain).

On any given day, my insides can deal me fight or flight. I scream out my lungs or shut off my mind, harden my heart or just bawl out my eyes. Some days, though, I manage to endure. Despite this quasi-explicit circumstance ("The Suck"), I agree with this tier of affliction in my life. Jack's Mannequin acknowledges that "rain makes the flowers grow." Dashboard Confessional concedes, "I don't mind the rain if I meet my Maker clean... I'll meet my Maker clean." Scripture says this:

Isaiah 48
10 See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.
How can I let myself be defamed?
I will not yield my glory to another.

Daniel 11
35 Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined,
purified and made spotless until the time of the end,
for it will still come at the appointed time.

Zechariah 13
8 "In the whole land," declares the LORD,
"two-thirds will be struck down and perish;
yet one-third will be left in it.
9 This third I will bring into the fire;
I will refine them like silver
and test them like gold.
They will call on my name
and I will answer them;
I will say, 'They are my people,'
and they will say, 'The LORD is our God.' "

Malachi 3
3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;
He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,
4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable
to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

There is something daringly beautiful about willfully dying in order to come alive (Luke 17:33). Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis from The Great Divorce: the greater the descent, the greater the glory thereafter. Only One has descended into the darkness no other could ever go, and He conquered what no one else could ever master.

Love is a choice not dictated by emotion. And in the pit of enduring is where love becomes fierce. Love like Jesus. Love fiercely.

In this moment, I'm... OK. Yeah... I think I am.




(I won't lie: being proactively expressive of what's going on in my introverted head is something I know she'd be proud of (now, I know why), and so it's one reason I write. Processing is good.)
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