Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I just had a lovely girly night out. Day in fact. I spent the afternoon at the Christmas market in Bath with a friend from Geneva who now lives in South UK (which is great!) and then came back for a chocolate party with "my ladies" and other friends. SO great. It was buy nothing day but I decided that legalism loses to relationship any time and so went shopping. Consumerism is my pet hate but it totally doesn't win over love :o)

Then I went out with this wonderful chick named Whitney. She is from Toronto!! I love having Canadian friends, I am so used to them now it would suck if I didn't know any. We were going out to party with her friend for his bday but we had one of those moments where, like, it was totally, just, impossibly rubbish. You know? Got in a taxi across Bris (wearing heels and also on rapist alert) and so that cost like £8 to find out that they were about to head back across town to go to a club that, I kid you not, we got into the taxi in front of.

Now, I might fool you as a clubbing girl but to be honest I am too lazy. I like to dance but I don't like to be out tired when there is a journey ahead of me and I could have been in bed already. It's quite a sad confession. I had gotten all excited but then when it came down to it I was not that cool. My feet were hurting, I didn't know anybody and we had just wasted money to be in this uncomfortable place. I nearly panicked. I lie, I had a full minute and a half where I wanted to cry over the obvious mistake. Why didn't I assert against this? Then, in my place of prayer and repentance (possible unnecessary use of word there) God made things OK. I decided we weren't going to go - I have to sing at church in the morning anyway and there was no way that the way to correct a mistake is to keep persevering at it! But we were already on Gloucester Road so we made the most of it: went for a drink together and then picked up chips (from the best chippy in Bristol) on the way home! And lo, God made something good out of it... Thank you :-)

So, what's all this about love in the title? Well, the thing is that when girls get together, I can't lie, we talk about boys. We don't ONLY talk about boys but it does have a tendency to come up. If you have one, if you want one, if you don't have one, if you don't want one...! It doesn't stop being interesting. All day it had been somehow or other on the agenda and so I come home thinking about how I feel about them. Which is mixed.

As I have shared before, I have had a bit of a tendency to be in a dependent place with men. Seeing them as an easy fix for the love that we are all programmed to desire but should be finding in God. This would be an all too simple way to describe my relationship problems. Now I don't think I am worse that other people but today I want to address the common theme of conversation and share some thoughts (albeit it in a convoluted manner), which are quite the opposite of previous assertions. I don't just struggle with too much want of relationships... oh no, in keeping with the popular theme of "complicated" too often it is all about the not wanting them enough...

We are talking about fear of commitment. Or maybe not commitment but affection. Or a mixture of all kinds of scary tings. I wrote a poem t'other day that says it a lot better so I will now copy that in:

So many people are afraid of love
Afraid to feel love
Afraid to be loved
Afraid to not feel love
Afraid to not be loved
Why are we afraid?
Fear: There to protect us
A response to something more powerful than us
We fear God because he is Awesome
God is love
Is that why we fear love?

The theory: That when we fear God we need not fear anything else
Though there are many things more powerful than me there are none more powerful than He
But that does not make me think that when I fear it is always right and good
I often fear when I should not
‘Tis not my vulnerability but independency that stops me being worry free

Love
So beautiful yet so fierce
There is every chance it will destroy one heart… two… more?
We have a reaction that tells us fight or flight in the face of danger
So tell me, is that why we run and just ignore?
A threat
Keep it far away and not live to regret
A broken heart just cannot be worth the risk of it

Love
Descended from God
Corrupted for sure but in essence Oh so pure
This fear must be a lie
Born out of brokenness and all set up to make us miss what God has in store
A damaged heart is always going to be a risk when we are gambling with love less perfect than His
But remember who is in charge
The only one to fear, the reason you are here, the restorer of the broken heart
Mine will not be destroyed ‘cause God is on guard

My point? I am pretentious. More seriously, that both these extremes are negative. I have been all too down on relationships in the past I confess (eg) but at the same time I realise that they are a great example of God's love for us (read these lyrics and tell me they aren't divinely inspired) when used correctly. There is no way that God wants us to avoid dependency in relationships, romantic or otherwise, this is just another lot of deception to discover.

What is the application to life? I don't know! My hair's not long enough anyway... It's just gossip over red wine and chocolate fondue. I need to go to bed now... x