This is the second installment in Hannah’s philosophy on love. (See part one.)
Fate. My Chinese sister, Wei, told me the story of Yue lao (月老), the Chinese matchmaking god. Legend has it that he connects two people together by tying a long red cord to their wrists. They may pass through life and never meet, but for the duration of eternity they will be soul-tied. And gosh, that’s a gorgeous legend, as far as legends about matchmaking deities go.
But hearing her story made me glad that the Christian view of sovereignty is different. Unlike Yue lao, who doesn’t care whether his beknotted earthlings ever meet, God not only plans our days–He guides them. This is not to drift into arguing for an all-too-elusive One-True-Love. That’s another conversation. What I’m saying here is that God outlined our storylines long ago. (Psalm 139:4-5, 16)
Calvinists may not be the people you first think of alongside such romantics as Keats and Tennyson, but my Arminian friends must admit they do have something nifty going on. When you believe that God is sovereign over your life and that means that He guides your steps, plans and puts limits on your wanderings—it is a comfort. Because our God is kind and will bring about His good purpose. (Proverbs 16:1-4) That knowledge frees us to joy, obedience, and eyes set in hope on the Father. And it means you believe that it’s within God’s jurisdiction (seriously? what isn’t God’s jurisdiction?) to choose someone for us to marry. Nice.
How do you know if someone is THAT SOMEONE? Probably the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard a pastor say about deciding whether someone is the one you should marry, “I always say there’s the one you can live with, and the one you can’t live without.”
There are probably thousands of guys that would roughly fit the qualifications I made in my head, even if I my list were arbitrary and choosy (“He must appreciate Mumford and Sons, and a good cup of chai…”). Heck, I could walk into a Starbucks and half the guys would qualify. But it’s not a question of checkmarks on a list. When it’s that person, it’ll be the one you can’t live without. You can’t let go. You can’t bear the thought of separating forever—and half the time you aren’t even sure why. It may not be because your personalities or interests necessarily “fit” in a rational way, but because something does in an irrational way, and you can’t explain it.
Taming. It’s a concept a friend recently brought up. She was re-reading The Little Prince, an unconventional French fairytale that is a must-read for all whimsical and romantic. At one point, the prince comes across a fox in the field. The fox says they cannot be friends unless the prince tames him. “To you I’m nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you’ll be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”
Ah, that is some truth.
What if we are not perfect for each other because we are perfect people, but because we tame each other? What if, by relationship, we work out each other’s snags and snarls—and even though a half a million other boys would check all the same marks on my list—you become, you, to me? If we were to draw this into the theological zone, I’d say that we sanctify each other. God made me to sanctify you. We fit.
I think my friend’s fairytale stretches deeper than a fairytale, into the realm of the mystery. Love, if it is real, is ultimately not about qualifications or perfections. Qualifications might be guide markers for us, but they cannot cause love on their own. Love is a process, an active, interacting state of being as much as it is a word for Hallmark cards (if not more). To love is to be moved, transformed and changed into the image of love. (Is that not what our Bibles teach us already?) So in the end, I distrust people who have set guidelines; guys who have a “type” that narrows to a specific look, girls who go after guys with a specific sense of humor. Because they do not know yet much of the transforming nature of love.
Don’t choose someone based on a type, because after love comes like a hurricane, they will no longer remain the same person. Maybe that’s just the currently-single romantic in me. But I think not.
Love is LOVE. Finally, don’t forget what it is we’re talking about here. This is a celebration; something to sing about (even if that song is something by “Regrets-and-mistakes-are-memories-made”-Adele). There is grace in that, too. Don’t listen to the break-up’s, the 500 Days of Summer and all the voices that would argue for a “realistic” view of love that is entirely hopeless, faithless, and unexciting. I understand that kind of thinking–the kind that is quick to count sorrows but not to count gifts and blessings. Sure, this world hurts a lot, and the odds against good things happening aren’t pretty.
God is bigger than that.
