This post is dedicated to a special woman in my life. Today, April 26, is her birthday, so I thought this would be as good a day as any to write this. I won't say her name because she knows who she is, and most of those who know me in real life know who she is as well, so it won't be necessary to give it here.
We first met on a Christian networking site sometime last year. She had seen something I had written about John Wesley, and she wrote to me and said I was the first Calvinist she had encountered who read John Wesley and wasn't ashamed to share it with others. We began to chat on Skype, and found that we seemed to have a lot in common, and these commonalities grew the more and more we got to know each other. We were both in our mid-20's, we were both believers, and we were both Reformed - all of which is very rare these days. We both enjoyed reading on the personal lives of theologians, and enjoyed even more studying and expositing scripture. It was refreshing for me to be able to open the Bible and go through a chapter with a woman, all the while not be worried about saying something that would turn her away.
Finally, we decided to meet in person and see where things led us. As it turned out, we got along well, and there seemed to be more of a connection than we realized. For example, I found out that she loved board games, even strategy board games. Around Easter this year we played about three rounds of Stratego - and when she told me she had always wanted to play Axis and Allies, well I just about squealed! We also both love older movies: we spent one night eating Chinese food while watching the Gary Cooper war classic Sergeant York, and we spent the night before Easter watching the wonderful film The Greatest Story Ever Told.
There's more, of course. She's a lovely daughter of God, and is someone who wants to live after her heavenly Father as much as an earthly father would want his daughter to do so. She practices what she preaches, and the only thing she looks for in a man is someone whose heart is likewise after God. Why she chose me, then, I do not know. I only see myself in the lowest opinion - the foremost of sinners, as Paul saw himself (1 Tim 1:15) - but in her eyes I am a wonderful man. In many ways, she makes me feel like one. I have never met any one like her who can not only make me feel wanted and loved, but she is able to make me feel better in a matter of moments. She can say a single thing, and the worst day is turned around almost immediately. No woman I have ever known has made me feel the way she makes me feel.
More importantly, she is a wonderful, shining example of God's love. She is so kind and forgiving to me, even when I really don't deserve it. I am in no ways a perfect man, and I do not always feel like the right man for her, and I feel that often I can treat her better than I really do. Despite this, she forgives me of my faults, and she loves me all the same no matter what trouble or speed bump we go through. At times I've come to tears because of the overwhelming realization of how much better a child of God she was than me, combined with the feeling that I am really undeserving of her and yet the Lord has gifted her to me any way. For this reason above all others I love with her with all my heart, and pray that our relationship only continues to blossom.
In short, I might compare her and I with our Lord and the man possessed by Legion. Why? Because she knows every demon inside me, and yet, at the end of the day, she doesn't hesitate to say she loves me.
God bless you, and I love you.
