Sharing with a you a post on romantic love I made for our common blog, I Think Therefore I'm Write, a couple of years ago. Wow! How times flies! I suddenly miss my ERMG days with the girls and our countless anything-under-the-sun conversations. Our favorite topic, as this post and most of the contents of the blog would suggest, is love. Those were the days when I would wake up every morning excited to go to work and don't mind staying late at the office to be with the girls--definitely among the best days of my life. It's a blessing that we were at the right place at the right time to be with each other. I miss being with them everyday, but I'm thankful that we're able to make time to keep in touch and still be part of each other's lives
Philip Yancey's description of romantic love below is my favorite. Romantic love is an elusive topic, but Philip Yancey's description is relatable. I especially like how he used "common grace" in this context. I'm reminded of Jean Valjean's scene in the movie Les Miserables when he was overwhelmed by the grace, hope, love, and forgiveness that he experienced (in a non-romantic love context) when he sang Suddenly (I love this song!). I was moved to tears while watching that scene; grace is indeed amazing, a beautiful gift from God, and an overwhelming experience.
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| Boracay sunset |
I just wanted to share
Philip Yancey’s description of romantic love. It is an excerpt from his book What’s
So Amazing About Grace? when he briefly touched on the subject.
For many, romantic love is the closest experience of pure grace. Someone at last feels that I—I!—am the most desirable attractive, companionable creature on the planet. Someone lies awake at night thinking of me. Someone forgives me before I ask, thinks of me when she gets dressed, orders her life around mine. Someone loves me just the way I am…
…About the same time, I fell in love. It felt exactly like a fall, a head-over heels tumble into a state of unbearable lightness. The earth tilted on its axis. I did not believe in romantic love at the time, thinking it was a human construct, an invention of fourteenth-century Italian poets. I was as unprepared for love as I had had been for goodness and beauty. Suddenly my heart seemed swollen, too large for my chest.
I was experiencing “common grace,” to use the theologian’s term. It is a terrible thing, I found to be grateful and have no one to thank, to be awed and have no one to worship. Gradually, very gradually, I came back to the cast-off faith of my childhood. I had experienced the “drippings of grace,” C.S. Lewis’s term for what awakens deep longing for a “scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
