Divine Romance

Have you ever felt that ache inside of you?  A hunger that yearns for something more? Something deeper?  Like there is something missing?  Do you ever feel like there is something that you intuitively know will satisfy you more than anything you have experienced thus far, but you just can’t find it?   

We all feel this ache.  Married women. Single women.  Married men. Single men. Laity. Priests. Religious. Rich. Poor. Old. Young. Chinese. German. Coaches. Lawyers. Firefighters. Politicians.        

Most times we divorce ourselves from this ache.  We slough it off as some annoying feeling and then search for our medications to squelch the pain so that it stops distracting us from doing whatever it was we were doing.  Our “Asprins” include burying ourselves in work or school, athletics or hobbies; trying to excel and complete great achievements with flying colors. We try to reach perfection with our figures, grades, relationships and status.  But after a short time, when we realize that the Asprin didn’t work, we pull out the bottle of “Tums” in hopes to remedy that ever-pressing ache: TV, music, books, wasting time on Facebook or other internet sites, scrapbooking, exercising, cleaning, reorganizing. Again, after another failed attempt to curb the ache we pump ourselves full of other medications: instant gratifications such as food and pornography, juicy intrigues, getting the latest gossip, romance novels, and feed on drama. 

 

Day after day after day after day... 

We do all sorts of things to kill the ache and not have to dig to find the source of it. 

But do you ever get tired of popping those useless pills?

What is this unnamed and seemingly irremediable ache, anyway? 

Did you read the blog post before this one?  The excerpt from Captivating? 

“God is relational to the core…He has a heart for romance…He does not want to be an option in our lives, an appendage, or a tagalong…God longs for romance…He longs to be our “ezer”…”

Hmmm…

Could this unnamed ache we all feel and can’t shake be the Lord’s pursual?  Could it be His voice whispering to us telling us that He is what we are craving?  Could it be our own longing for intimacy with Him that leaves us still aching even after trying to remedy it with the quick-fix “pills”?   

Yes.  All of the above.  See, God created us with a natural longing for a deep, personal relationship with Him.  So when we feel this unrelenting ache, it is our own personal built-in warning system saying that we have somehow forgotten or neglected our First Love.  This ache is a hunger for God.   And not just a hunger to know a God “out there;” a God who is at Church on Sundays, a God who is close only when you lose a loved one, a God who only notices you in order to clock your Christian service hours or count the number of rosaries you prayed.  That type of God is indifferent and distant.  Why would we have a hungering ache for a God like that?

No, this hunger is a hunger to know God, the Divine Lover.  The Divine Lover who is personal. Alive. Touchable. Tender. Genuinely interested. Intimate.

Wait, intimate?  

Yes, intimate.  Not a word we usually use when speaking about a relationship with God, is it?  Ahh, but He is the most intimate of Lovers.  He designed your heart with the capacity and purpose of having a deep love relationship with Him.  He created it so that only He could satisfy your need for intimacy (hence the ache and unhappiness we feel when we try to fill it with other things besides Him).  Even the beauty and intimacy of the spousal union in marriage is only a foreshadowing – a glimpse – of the degree of intimacy He longs to have with each of us.  God is passionately in love with you.  So much so that you are never out from under His loving gaze.  Never.  You are always the center of His attention and affection (don’t believe me?  Ask Jeremiah – Jer. 31:3). 

This ache we feel is simply our soul's response to the love song it hears being sung by the Divine Lover, His call to “arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come,” come deeper into the recesses of My Heart (Song of Songs 2:13-14). 

I once heard a priest give a homily reminding us that this divine romance is not always going to be lovey-dovey, daisies and rainbows.  It is not always going to be “Song of Songs” and “set me as a seal on your heart.”  True.  Very true.  There will be times of testing, trial, dryness.  However, developing this intimate love-relationship with the Lord is vital for survival when the daisies wilt and the storm clouds roll in.  Without this solid rock, your house is surely going to crumble. 

Falling in love with the Lord is the foundational step to filling that unnamed ache for something more, something greater.  And there is a big difference in loving the Lord and being in love with the Lord.  Even if you have a good relationship with the Lord, He wants to take it deeper.  There is always more.  His love is fathomless; the depth of which is uncomprehensible.     

My sisters, God longs for romance with you, not just a relationship.  This is such a basic and foundational truth, yet so easily discarded.  We lose sight of our preciousness and worth because we do not take the time to develop this intimate love relationship with the Lord.  Instead, we focus on hiding or perfecting our “flaws” (though St. Paul tells us that power is made perfect in weakness - 2Cor12:9), or on being beautiful by the world’s standards (though God tells us that beauty is fleeting and to focus our energies on pleasing the Lord, because there our true beauty lies – Prov 31:30), or we just get lazy and when it gets tough or mundane, we lose interest, or we are hindered by fear; not wanting to reveal our intimate selves to Him.  

But I will say it again.  God longs for intimacy with you.  My sisters, get in touch with the Source of this ache inside of you.  Dive into this Divine Romance with our God who is passionately in love with you!  Seek Him in prayer daily, search Him out in the Scriptures, take a walk with Him through the woods or sit with Him in the hammock in your back yard, letting Him caress your face with the breeze, sit in silence with Him and still your heart.  He has a million ways of showing His intimate love He has for you and drawing you deeper into His intimate embrace.  Just simply tune your mind and senses towards noticing His little (and big) love notes. 

 

Here is a beautiful song that seems to always waken my heart to the presence of the Lord and the romance into which He is inviting me. 

I encourage (dare I say challenge) you to ask the Lord to show you, in a tangible and concrete way, His intimate and personal love for you today.  I guarantee, if you are watching for it, you will not be disappointed.  Enter into this Divine Romance.  Enter deeply…

“The Sacred Romance calls to us in our fondest moments, our greatest loves, our noblest achievements, even our deepest hurts.  The reward is worth the risk.  God Himself longs for us, if we are but willing…” – The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge

                                                                  Peace to your beautiful hearts,

                                                                   -Sr. Elizabeth, TOR