breakthrough of breakthroughs

(this requires a little explanation preceding:
my best friend got engaged. and when i say best friend, i mean the kind of friend that you are so close with, you'd spent your entire childhoods together inside your imaginations, and grew up together, and really know and love each other. we're cousins, and we call each other "davida" and "jonathana", our female versions of david and jonathan from the book 1 samuel. i am not even twenty, and jonathana is getting married. and i have always gone on these little rants about how i will never get married young, and i've always meant them with my whole heart, i think. so imagine my shock when one of the many emotions i felt, hearing about the sparkly diamond ring on cassia's finger, was envy. i am so very excited for cassia and ben, that was the main emotion-- that and overwhelming change-- but i never expected to be kind of jealous. then i had a breakthrough. actually, i should not take credit. God broke through to me.)

This is the core of what I thought was jealousy, a jealousy of what Cassi and Ben have, that seemed to materialize out of nothing (especially in light of my loudly proclaimed "marriage-wariness".)

There is something so beautiful to me about that kind of love that is so sure of itself it can only be satisfied in marriage.

I was envious that Cassi has someone who loves her so much he wants to marry her. He wants the world to know, he wants to be there for her always, always, he wants her and only her for the rest of their lives.

Who wouldn't want someone to love them like that?

This is what I was forgetting, the reason the institution of marriage even exists.
It is supposed to echo the way God feels about us.
It is the picture, a muddy sort of earthly picture, of Christ and his bride. Us.

Jesus has seen us at our worst, our very darkest, and loved us. He has known all we've done (and haven't done) and died for us. He is so sure of His love for us He can only be satisfied in marriage. He wants all of us.

I had wondered what the significance was of Dawn and I memorizing Ephesians 5, explicitly about marriage. We're both kind of single. "Really, Dawn?" But Dawn listens to God, so... "Really, God?"

"Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives."
(I thought Eugene Peterson's translation for that section was pretty.)

I think I get it now, though. The last bit of Ephesians 5 is explicitly about marriage, but not necessarily that between man and a woman. It's about Christ and the church.

"'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

What I really wanted was to know HE loves me. All I really need to know is that HE loves me. and He does, so much more than I'll ever know, without condition.



Oh Jesus, sanctify and cleanse me. I am Yours I am Yours I am Yours.