I drove home this week to spend Thanksgiving with my family. It’s a very long drive, so I had plenty of time to do some serious self reflecting, meditating and praying. I was specifically praying about love- what it is and how it applies to my situation. Love is such a precious and uplifting experience, yet there are so many people that go through life never experiencing what it’s like to fall in love- to give your heart to another person completely and have their heart in return.I have spent the last year trying to fall in love with girls with no success. I have loved them as friends, but I have not been able to give them my heart. I’ve considered celibacy, but I can’t imagine living deprived of love- that feeling that is supposed to make you more Christ-like and brings real happiness. I understand that there are some within the church, most of them single women, who never have the opportunity to fall in love and get married. It can be argued that if they can manage, so can I. The difference is that I do have the opportunity to fall in love. Man was not meant to be alone, but that is what the church would have me do. Yet as I pray, I again deeply feel that I should not let the chance to fall in love pass me by- even if that means falling in love with another guy. I feel so peaceful about this proposition, though it clearly runs against the grain of orthodoxy. I don’t care; I feel closer to Heavenly Father now than I have for the last year, so I think I'm going to trust my feelings, close my eyes, and leap.
Here’s one of my new favorite quotes about love:
“You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn't true. I know a lot about love. I've seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate... It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves... You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I'm trying to say… is... I think I love you. Is this love? I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange - no fits. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.” –Yvaine (Claire Danes) Stardust
6 comments:
Like a week that's only Mondays.
We'd all like to feel loved and whole. I wish you well on your quest.
I can handle never finding one person to love forever. I can handle not finding a soul mate. I can handle not finding the pure happiness of true love. What I can't handle is never looking.
It's that that makes celibacy a dirty word in my book.
It's one thing to try and fail. It's another to be assigned failure.
Playasinmar,
I don't think that anyone is set-up for failure. Sure there may be trials that are much harder than others, but Christ gives us the tools to handle everything that we need. He has also given us the help of Priesthood leaders, the Priesthood itself, parents, family members, friends, and the list can go on and on.
I firmly believe that all of us can make it and that we can all feel loved outside of a homosexual relationship. I know that I feel loved everyday in my life by girlfriend, God, family, friends, and Priesthood leaders and I love my girlfriend and the rest of the people on the list dearly.
Not a single one of us is set up for failure.
Like a circle with no center.
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