It is very easy to feel in love with God when you feel in love with a person.
It is not so easy to feel in love with God, or even enormously loved by God, when you feel rejected by a person. Or persons. Or many people. 3 at least.
I have the knowledge that Jesus loves me (for the Bible tells me so). I have the knowledge that I am deeply loved. But the feeling…the feeling that Song of Solomon gives me when I read it, or that I used to get when I felt loved by God because I was loved by B…those feelings are overwhelmingly lukewarm.
I feel rejected by B through his apathy, I feel rejected by El Ecuatoriano even though he brings me such daily delight, I feel rejected by that one salsa-loving man from the past who never called me, and I feel like God isn’t so excited about me either. How can I begin to feel like God is in love with me when I feel people, specifically men of my fancy, turning me away? And how can I feel fulfilled as the strong independent woman that I claim to be, without having a boy to bring me a washcloth for my forehead when I’m sick, and drink coffee with me at twilight?
Lately I feel more convicted than ever that there must be a God (passing chemistry ultimately proved this for me) and that God must love me (He created rhubarb pie–enough said), but my emotions are rarely convinced.
Rarely.
That is, until I see amateur leagues of soccer players in the field outside my window, at dusk, how happy and alive they look. And when I go to the Green City Market and feel like I have been transported into a magical world where children constantly dance to bluegrass and every farmer is beautiful and kind and have a life story that would rival any biopic of any famous person and every customer will pay any price for tomatoes as long as they are grown locally and seasonally. Even when I ask El Ecuatoriano’s love interest if she has a boyfriend for him, it makes me happy to see his face light up with giddy hope. I know this feeling; I love to see it in others. Even if this other is someone I have wanted for myself.
Or when I learn a new verb tense in another language, that makes me happy. When I am drinking margaritas in the sun, that makes me happy. When I am traveling, even if I am miserable, I am joyfully miserable, or miserably joyful, because I feel like I am inside of God’s heart when I am in another country. Or when I see a good movie, or read a book about a strong independent woman who goes on an adventure. Or when I hear about the loves of my friends, and realize how powerfully God works through the loves of others. I feel then inspired to be patient.
I feel God loving me when I listen to the song “Conversaciones Incompatibles” by Muchachito Bombo Inferno (impossible to feel sad when listening to this–please listen to it, do) or anything by Habib Koite. And when I think of a memory, a really happy memory, with a friend and I can say “Thank you God for this memory.” “Thank you God for that croissant in Paris and that hug in Florence and that boy on the bench and that mom in my heart and that lovely lovely rain, all that lovely lovely rain, thank you.”
This is how it is to be with a lover, I suppose, to feel this love so powerfully sometimes, but at other times, simply to know it. Simply to keep saying, “I love you” because this is a statement of cerebral truth, sometimes more than a feeling. Or a statement of commitment.
But I think God and I are more at the commitment part right now, at least on this side of the divine realm.
I could really use some Habib Koite right now.
thank you god for mari! truly an amazing post. just like you!