If you’ve been following me on Facebook (and if you haven’t, the truth remains the same), I’ve had what is to me a major life event in the past week. For the first time in my life, I am in a Relationship with a capital R. I am someone’s boyfriend, and I have a girlfriend.
Questions abound, I’m sure. To start, her name is Amy. We met online. Occasionally, it seems, online dating does pan out. In my case, it panned out very well. Amy is a very attractive young woman, very pretty with gorgeous long hair and dazzling eyes. She’s a nerd, and a writer with a snarky sense of humor. She’s also a sophomore at a Christian college, studying English and Theater, and while she goes to school out of state, her hometown is in Colorado. But this only scratches the surface of who Amy is.
Amy is, in my honest opinion, a very amazing person. She is brave, able to face her fears and take risks for what she wants, even to initiate with a guy—which is not terribly common to find in a girl, even online. She is also passionate, caring deeply about the people she’s with and capable of feeling very deeply, as she has with crushes in her past. She is loyal and committed. As a friend she stuck by and supported even those who were actively and knowingly wounding her, and when faced with insurmountable difficulties at a job which—at times—was probably not even treating her legally as an employee, she still felt immense guilt and quit only reluctantly. She is not the sort of person who gives up or gives in easily. I am persuaded that she has in her that sort of heroic kindness that would give you the shirt off her back and think it no big deal, certainly nothing worth mentioning. She is amazing, and more amazing still, she really, seriously likes me.
Even before we were boyfriend and girlfriend (which we haven’t been for long), that part was taking some getting used to. It’s not that I’ve never had anyone like me before. There were a couple girls in high school, one who was, awkwardly enough, my then-crush’s sister, and another who came off as being clingy toward everyone in my family. So while I have had the experience of being liked, it was brief, shallow, awkward, and certainly not from anyone I felt anything like what I feel for Amy. Our relationship began as a mutual crush, and that in itself was strange to me. I’m no stranger to crushes, my earliest dates back to grade school! But I’ve never had anyone I like like me back. I’m so used to being the only one in a friendship who has these feelings, so used to having to suppress them and respect the other person’s cooler, platonic affections. It is still something I’m getting used to, to realize that when I really miss hearing her voice, she really misses hearing mine. That as magical as the act of holding her hand is to me, it gives her butterflies as well. It’s a strange idea to get used to, that someone feels that strongly for me, especially someone as awesome as Amy.
But it puts me in mind of stranger, greater things. As amazing as Amy is (and she is), there is One who is far more excellent than words, whose monikers include “the King of Kings” and “the Everlasting God.” While Amy has without complaint made sacrifices for disloyal friends, He silently endured a sham trial, public mocking, mutilating beating, and literally excruciating death for His enemies. Where Amy is creative, He created the world, the heavens, and everything therein, including Amy. While she is loyal, He has such faithfulness that it is quite thoroughly impossible that He should ever break His word or fail in performing it. Where Amy’s beauty dazzles, His has (on the record) struck men dumb and sent them to their knees gibbering their unworthiness to behold Him in his glory. Most amazing of all, everything Amy and I feel for each other—everything we do for each other, now and even if our relationship should be able to progress to the uttermost extent of human romance—is at best a pale shadow of the unfathomably deep love He has for us.
I am no stranger any longer to the idea that God loves me. It took some getting used to. Still, it is certainly not a truth to be taken for granted. It should change everything. I should live my life in awe of this one truth. Knowing, being liked by, and becoming the boyfriend of Amy has helped me remember this wonder, and has made me consider that the line from the old song may indeed be right: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return.”
Questions abound, I’m sure. To start, her name is Amy. We met online. Occasionally, it seems, online dating does pan out. In my case, it panned out very well. Amy is a very attractive young woman, very pretty with gorgeous long hair and dazzling eyes. She’s a nerd, and a writer with a snarky sense of humor. She’s also a sophomore at a Christian college, studying English and Theater, and while she goes to school out of state, her hometown is in Colorado. But this only scratches the surface of who Amy is.
Amy is, in my honest opinion, a very amazing person. She is brave, able to face her fears and take risks for what she wants, even to initiate with a guy—which is not terribly common to find in a girl, even online. She is also passionate, caring deeply about the people she’s with and capable of feeling very deeply, as she has with crushes in her past. She is loyal and committed. As a friend she stuck by and supported even those who were actively and knowingly wounding her, and when faced with insurmountable difficulties at a job which—at times—was probably not even treating her legally as an employee, she still felt immense guilt and quit only reluctantly. She is not the sort of person who gives up or gives in easily. I am persuaded that she has in her that sort of heroic kindness that would give you the shirt off her back and think it no big deal, certainly nothing worth mentioning. She is amazing, and more amazing still, she really, seriously likes me.
Even before we were boyfriend and girlfriend (which we haven’t been for long), that part was taking some getting used to. It’s not that I’ve never had anyone like me before. There were a couple girls in high school, one who was, awkwardly enough, my then-crush’s sister, and another who came off as being clingy toward everyone in my family. So while I have had the experience of being liked, it was brief, shallow, awkward, and certainly not from anyone I felt anything like what I feel for Amy. Our relationship began as a mutual crush, and that in itself was strange to me. I’m no stranger to crushes, my earliest dates back to grade school! But I’ve never had anyone I like like me back. I’m so used to being the only one in a friendship who has these feelings, so used to having to suppress them and respect the other person’s cooler, platonic affections. It is still something I’m getting used to, to realize that when I really miss hearing her voice, she really misses hearing mine. That as magical as the act of holding her hand is to me, it gives her butterflies as well. It’s a strange idea to get used to, that someone feels that strongly for me, especially someone as awesome as Amy.
But it puts me in mind of stranger, greater things. As amazing as Amy is (and she is), there is One who is far more excellent than words, whose monikers include “the King of Kings” and “the Everlasting God.” While Amy has without complaint made sacrifices for disloyal friends, He silently endured a sham trial, public mocking, mutilating beating, and literally excruciating death for His enemies. Where Amy is creative, He created the world, the heavens, and everything therein, including Amy. While she is loyal, He has such faithfulness that it is quite thoroughly impossible that He should ever break His word or fail in performing it. Where Amy’s beauty dazzles, His has (on the record) struck men dumb and sent them to their knees gibbering their unworthiness to behold Him in his glory. Most amazing of all, everything Amy and I feel for each other—everything we do for each other, now and even if our relationship should be able to progress to the uttermost extent of human romance—is at best a pale shadow of the unfathomably deep love He has for us.
