Women get a bad reputation for falling love with love stories. Pride and Prejudice. You’ve Got Mail. Anne of Green Gables. Guys, if you’ve been with a group of girls at a movie night where any one of those movies (or others) have been pulled out, you can understand. The mushy gushiness, the popcorn, the tears, the shouts of exultation, the desperate sighs, the (hopefully not) endless rewinding and replaying of those AH-HAH moments. Smirking. Smiling. Blushing. Hoping. Before you write us as off as hopeless… oh, do please listen.
What is it about these love stories that makes girls go absolutely emotionally-plumb-crazy? Well, lets look at a similar aspect in each of these movies I have mentioned. Simply enough? The guy falls for the girl. He pursues her. She rejects him, seemingly disgusted by him. He’s not deterred. (To the audience, she’s obviously made for him.)Finally, she receives a smack-bang revelation of how good he is. Things fall into place… and they are now together.
This is a common theme. I often thought it was ironic that girls are always wishing for a love story like Pride and Prejudice… but not willing to fall for someone who they are disgusted with at the present moment. (Well, me too).Odd, huh? So why do these stories strike such a deep chord within our feminine hearts? How does the addictive nature of Hollywood chick flicks grab a hold of our souls? We are hungry. We are starving.
Well, for me, the revelation hit while reading my childhood novel, Anne of Avonlea then Anne of the Island. Now, reading love stories can be incredibly dangerous, because when we open our hearts, we are vulnerable to misapplying them to our own lives. Example- preteen me reading these stories and ‘falling’ for the boy closest to “Gilbert”. Hah. But it’s true! That in the past, I still love the story. Gilbert endlessly pursuing Anne, there all along, despite her blindness and pride and fake ideals. He knew her. And he was patient. AND HE WON HER IN THE END! (Can’t you see why girls are swooning left and right?).
She’s me.
But it’s not because I have a new boyfriend that I’ve finally realized I’m in love with… (all those who know me, breathe a sigh of relief!) I’ve learned my lesson with misapplication. No. She is me. Why? Because IT’S THE STORY OF THE AGES!!! It’s the LOVE STORY WE WERE SET APART FOR, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD!!!
She’s me. Because I was proud. Silly. Too overwhelmed with my own ‘perfect ideals’ to realize what I had. Too comfortable with being “just friends” and afraid of going farther then… Jesus came. Not just a character from a book. The REAL man, the perfect one. He pursued me. He kept going after me, even when I completely rejected deeper relationship with Him. Even when I thought I needed something more, He showed me how He knew me specifically and lovely and joyfully and how… well, of course, I was made for Him, too. And in romance He did not give up.
We are His Bride, the Church. We are the Lover and He is the Beloved. Therefore, the reason these stories poke so honestly at our hearts is because it’s the story of us: Jesus, pursuing us unwavering! Us being “iffy” and swaying back and forth –so totally made for Him- yet not willing to let go and to fall in love utterly and completely. Pursuing. Romancing. Then, one day… oh His glorious patiences WINS… and we melt into His arms of complete love.
That’s love. Not this sissy stuff we think we’ve found on a best-seller rack. That book you’re reading is a best-seller BECAUSE it’s our story! Jesus Christ, the perfect gentleman, and His beautiful Bride, the Church. So girls, don’t go running after movies to satisfy your desires. I know this from constant experience. Oh, join with me, and give into One who has been pursuing us unending. Who knows us intimately. And guys, do not discount our desires as silly or impossible to understand. As a woman, I’m sorry for us putting unhuman ideals on you. It’s only Christ’s character that can live up to our desires. So, pursue Him and give into Him, too. He loves us! Only then can we hope to see what relationships on earth should look like.
I’m a lover of God, that’s it.
And when we realize our identity as that… imagine what could happen. Oh, it makes me all gushy inside.
