I am in Love. On a boat. In a storm.

Picture this:  A girl. On a boat. In a storm.  An old rickety boat. In a storm that looks rather life-threatening.  Waves.  Big ones. Lightning.  Thunder.  It’s cold.  It’s raining.  And she’s alone.  In the middle of the ocean.  She is sitting down, holding on.  But she doesn’t look scared.  She doesn’t look worried.  She doesn’t even look sad.  She is not shaking cold in a corner.  No, she is singing.  Her eyes are closed, there is light in her face, and she is singing. It is as if she is singing to the waves, the thunder, the lightning…she is singing to them.  And as she does the strength of her heart builds.  Her bravery multiplies.  And the very power of the sea rises up in her spirit.

My life seems to unfold in photos lately.  Mostly because words are sparse (ironic, as I sit here and write a novel), but even then they are gravely inadequate for this life of mine that stirs inside me.  I must say I have never been in a place like this before.  Not ever.  No, not even close.  All of the “junk” that I went through as a kid really doesn’t compare to this.  I don’t mean that in a pitiful or “sorry” way- not at all.  I just haven’t been down this road before.  This exhilarating, yet patient ridden and sometimes painful road.  A narrow road I might add.  And yet somehow, incomprehensibly so, I am more joy filled, still, and dare I say happy than I have ever been.  It is bizarre. 

The storm that is swirling around me is one that- in the past- would drown me into utter tears.  Despondency.  But for reasons beyond all explanation (other than the Grace of God and him as my personal, invincible army) I am saved from the towering waves.  Actually, to sound quite counter-intuitive, it is the waves themselves that have taught me how to live.  They, or rather his hand through them, have showed me life in ways I never believed suffering and trials ever could.

How is it that peace can exist in such a place?  I don’t have a good, earthly answer to that. And not just peace, but an un-worried, carefree “carelessness” for what thunders around me…because I know, with a conviction so strong, that he’s got it.  He’s got this.  My boat won’t capsize.  The waves won’t drown me.  He is good. So, so good.  And I am in absolute awe, daily, of his supernatural ability to sustain me amidst such things.  And not to just sustain me, barely, with my head above water.  But to breathe a new kind of life into my soul so deep and so strong that I am not just “surviving;” I am sourced from the complete thrill of his hope and the wildness of his love.  I must say, that God is most assuredly worth holding my breath for or plugging my nose for when the waters get a little deep and the sea gets a little reckless.

So here I sit, directly before his magnificent power in the middle of a storm out at sea, nodding, replying “Okay. Whatever you tell me to do, I’ll do.” I have realized, quite profoundly, (and probably for the first time in my life really…ever) that being able to say “Yes” to him no matter what and no matter when really is the most soul-satisfying and desire filling thing I could ever do.  Of course that means I must say no to other things.  And that is never easy.  Especially things I want.  Saying yes to what he asks of me always sounded nice.  Romantic and poetic even.  But doesn’t everything that’s hard sound romantic at first?  That is until we're in the midst of it and we realize it isn't that romantic at all.  Or at least, not how we pictured it.  It’s actually quite hard.  Not very pretty.  And we realize our imagination edited out all the difficult stuff like some sappy love story that we bought an overpriced movie ticket for. 

It is quite a divine shift when saying yes to him actually becomes what I want to do- not just something I have to do.  It is even more surprising when that shift comes so naturally.  So naturally, in fact, I almost didn’t notice it happened.  I suppose- wait no- I know love is at the foundation of it.  I am compelled.  Saying yes to him is easy when I love him.  It’s easy when I know he loves me – without a hint of a doubt.  It’s easy when my desire to love him outweighs everything else.  And yet in the midst of these stormy circumstances that caused such a shift… something happened.  

I fell in love with my God. 

I have always loved him.  As long as I can remember.  And I must say that “falling into” it really had no part in it.  What has brought me here has been a series of choices and experiences that have involved deep pain, deep joy, and everything in between.  The love story continues.  Some 5 months ago a dear friend showed me a song.  The lyrics went like this:

“You have called me Master,

Though you’re in the dark here,

Call me Friend

And call me Lover

Marry me for good.”

The “marry me for good” part jumped right out of the harmony and pierced me to my very depths.  I recall hanging a written “photo” that I had made at that moment.  A photo that says, “Give thanks to the Lord Almighty.  For the Lord is good.  And His love endures forever.”  I remember thinking, “Have I not married you yet?”  I would’ve sworn I did.  Or maybe I’m supposed to renew my vows to you or something?  I wasn’t quite sure.  But the thought stuck.  And a month later I sat in my room, journaling my thoughts and prayers in the aftermath of heartache, and I had a revelation: I was to be married. 

And, of course, no marriage is without its romance.

I knew, instinctively, that the months that lie ahead would be a series of I Do’s and Yes’s to my One and Only.  I would say I Do to him in the loneliness, in the sadness, on the mountaintop, in the valley, on the cliffs, in the desert, in the tears, in the confusion, the unfairness, in the celebrations, and in the laughter.  I would say I Do to every thing he asked of me, every place he called me, every person he asked me to touch, speak to, or love.  I would say I Do even when the boat seems to be sinking and my heart starts racing…only to find that in saying I Do, I give him back all the power I take when I say I Don’t by doubt, worry, or lost hope.  And as my I Do’s and Yes’s to him echo throughout realms I can’t physically see, I feel their effects at the core of my being; sprouting, budding, blooming into a life of real romance on the inside- so full and so abundant- that no storm could ever destroy it. 

It’s important to remember that even though imaginations’ ideals can edit out all the hard stuff and the storms like a surface-filled romance movie, it doesn’t mean that the romance is non-existent. No, it is very much there and alive.  It’s just different than we had envisioned.  It is much richer than even the greatest imagination could fathom. 

We get so caught up in what we think it should look like that we end up missing the real thing. 

Real romance involves the pain and the joy, the beautiful and the not-so-much.  Just read the greatest love story ever told authored by your Lord and Savior.  Recently I watched some surface romantic comedy - you know those ones every woman practically gawks over.  That genre of movie that sells more movie tickets than every other genre combined.  Truly.  (I think our hearts are thirsty for something, ahem, Someone, yeah?)  And then I watched a heart-wrenching, trial-filled love story (Last of the Mohicans).  And though it is only a movie, I of course gravitate to the latter.  Why?  It isn’t because I’m a glutton for punishment.  No, it’s because suffering and storms have a way of making the love deeper.  It is because there are some things that only suffering can accomplish.  And I want that love from the very depths of who I am.  Because that kind of love story has meaning.  And therefore it's a story worth telling.  And re-telling.  Over and over.

Do those kinds of stories not give God the Glory?  They do.  Because they’re stories that survived all odds and seeming impossibilities.  Real romance and real love stories involve pain.  They involve storms.  They just do.  What a blessed person are we if we are to find love in the middle of a storm.  On a boat.  Out at sea.  Singing. 

With every I Do my steps moved toward him.  With every I Do my heart learned to trust him all the more, to spend time with him, to love him all the more, and in such love…it has taught me to fear him.  I can’t not.  It seems I have no other choice.  And I don’t want another choice.  Captivated by all he is in the throes of thunder, waves, salt water and rain.  Asking “Why” has no place; it's not even a thought anymore.  There is no need to know.  He loves me.  And that is all I need.  

I don’t see the storm- well, my natural eyes do.  But with eyes not of my own, I see me and my Father out in the fields somewhere, sitting underneath an oak tree, picking Sunflowers, in a pure, white dress. He doesn’t say much and neither do I.  We don’t need to.  The kind of silence only best friends can stand.  The kind of romance set on fire by the fierceness of the storm and kept alive by the depth of love that started it.

I am in love.

On a boat.

In a storm.

...And I am singing.