Object of His Affection

It’s difficult to describe to people the whole feeling of wanting to be “pursued”.

To be sought after, to be fought for, to be risked for and to know that no matter what, you are worth it.

I speak for myself as the cries “Am I loved? Am I wanted? Am I accepted for who I am?” have permeated my life for so long- especially when I am not the best of myself.

Yesterday I fought with my beloved, and I learnt several things.

I learnt that emotions should not be involved in conflict resolution, especially if one is PMS-ing. Not a good combo. Words flew, and hearts were broken in the careless process.

I spoke to him about my expectations on how I want to be pursued.

How I wished things were, and how I expected things to be a certain way - with flowers, gifts, unexpected surprises, with lots of planning and yet with a tinge of spontaneity… How much more complex can a girl be huh?

And yet over and over again, my assumptions of love and of being pursued were being challenged.

While I shot him down through my unmet need and unmet expectations, he kept quiet and bit his own lips to avoid from lashing out his own sharp remarks. He was still the whole time, asking me to “Go on”, even though my words cut into his very soul, words like “I wish you had… If only…” Words that I didn’t know how to tell him “I want to be pursued, I want to know that you want me, that you will fight for me”, but instead translated to a message that told him that “You aren’t good enough. You’ll never get it right.”

How in the whole process, he pursued me by not leaving my side or lashing out at me at the atrocity of my words even when I was killing him with every word I said.

How looking back, although while pouring out my emotions to him it felt like I was justified, deep down my heart ached in regret, that maybe I just haven’t given him a chance to love me. That maybe I’ve had my own assumptions of love and of being wanted, that I failed to see all his own ways of supporting me and of loving me all these while.

And how when he sat there yesterday in the car before he went home after dropping me off,

And how when he sms-ed me later to find out how I was,

And how he called me even though he didn’t do anything wrong,

He showed me a lot about what love actually is.

“That love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”

He reminded me of Jesus once more.

How especially at this time where tomorrow is Good Friday - the day when Jesus was crucified, where He was condemned for something He did not do, where He was rejected and ridiculed for being who He is, and for many more suffering that He didn’t deserve.

Where He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet He never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
He did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned,
He was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that His life was cut short in midstream.
But He was struck down
for the rebellion of His people.

Like my beloved and I, it was so natural to wish to be pursued a certain way (i.e. with languish gifts and romance, etc.), but truly, the factors that have shaped such notions of what love meant were not right, factors that were changing and not constant-factors such as the media.

And so in the same case, there are many factors that cause us to view God differently than how He is, and whether it has distorted our own notion of who He is.

Because really if you ask me, for someone to give His life for me in order that I can now:

Trade my ashes in for beauty,

And wear forgiveness as a crown,

Having to kiss the feet of mercy,

And being able to lay every burden down,

I can only do all these at the foot of the cross,

The place where God sent Jesus to pay the price for all our wrongdoing.

“All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.”

Blessed Easter, everyone.

You are worth it.