In third grade, I remember lying in my bed at night, snuggling under my sheets, cuddling my stuffed animal, and thinking warm-fuzzy thoughts of a girl in my homeroom that I would have a crush on for years to come.
I’ve been a romantic for as far back as I can remember.
Friendships are what I’m good at. And friendships are about connecting with people, about understanding what they care about, what their passions are, what their troubles are, and how to comfort them and push them toward realizing their potential.
I’ve come to believe that humanity is about empathy. Our ability to share another person’s joy and pain is what the human drama is all about. To be understood wholly and completely by another person is our greatest wish. This is why so many people struggle so much to find a true love. Whether with friends, family, or lovers.
For me, I regard marriage as sacred. For whatever reason, I’ve developed a predisposition to be loyal and patient, sometimes to a fault.
My favorite explanation of this phenomenon is a quote by Susan Sarandon’s character, Beverly Clark, in the movie Shall We Dance?:
We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.
But with human relationships, I am learning they are incredibly tenuous. True love one day, might be a painful separation the next. There is no guarantee your witness will always be there.
And that brings me to Christians’ faith in Jesus Christ. I think I get it now.
Belief in Christ’s promise is faith that He has recognized humanity’s separation from God and sacrificed His self, so that we might have an opportunity to finally have that eternal Witness.
Who else is a better true love? What greater romance?
Now, I’m not confessing my faith in Christ. It’s just that now I believe I understand Christians’ hope.
And who wouldn’t hope for such a great love?