Romance

The fullness of

Your grace is here with me,

The richness of

Your beauty is all I see

The brightness of

Your glory has arrived

In Your presence, God,

I'm completely satisfied

For You I sing I dance,

Rejoice in this Divine Romance,

Lift my heart and my hands

To show my love

To show my love

A deep deep flood,

An ocean flows from You,

Of deep deep love,

Yeah it's filling up the room,

Your innocent blood,

Has washed my guilty life,

In Your presence God,

I'm completely satisfied,

For You I sing I dance,

Rejoice in this Divine Romance,

Lift my heart and my hands

To show my love

To show my love

Intimacy. That's what my soul longs for. I continually seek it out, push, leap, jump after it from whatever my eyes are set on. I keep looking for it, crying out for it, my soul screams for want of it, and the fact of the matter is I don't feel like I really have it. It hurts, my chest is tight and sometimes it's hard to breathe, there are times when I wake up in the morning and I just don't want to get out of bed because I ask myself, "What is it that I have to meet me today? Any intimacy?" It constantly seems to be a resounding, "No, no intimacy at all" that seems to answer my soul's most essential inquiry. It just hurts. 

Nothing happens accidentally, everything is gifted providentially. Every moment in time is God reaching out and enveloping me in His mercy. This became clearer to me throughout the course of this day. I drove to St. Joe to grab coffee with Dana and Andrew, we went to an awesome adoration chapel just outside of St. Joseph. I was taken aback by the sheer beauty that was covering all of this chapel. I kneeled and looked at my Eucharistic Lord and prayed simply, "Take this, all of it, I give it to You freely and unreservedly, do with it as You please." The desires of my heart, the things I've been trying to "figure out" for most of this year, I just handed it all over, all of it and wanted Him to take all that I had to offer.

Upon my return to campus this afternoon, I responded to my friend Dania's post on my facebook page. The quote she had on her page was simple, profound, and exactly what God needed me to hear. All it said was, "In Your presence God, I'm completely satisfied." This simple phrase, this profound prayer to God, was exactly what my soul needed to pray today. I immediately bought the song, "Divine Romance" by Phil Wickham and started to listen to it. As I just let myself get wrapped up in the lyrics I came to realize that this song is the song of my soul at this exact moment in time. I started to reflect on romance, and how it ever constantly seems to elude me, and I came to a fantastic realization today: all the romance I could ever want is being put forth by God all the time. Then things started to click, love is a complete and utter gift of self within the marriage covenant, the unreserved handing over of all that you are to your spouse. God has been courting me. He's been romancing me. It was just a few moments ago that I came to realize that as being a member of His bride, the Church, He wants to give all of Himself to me, and if I truly love Him as I'm supposed to, I need to give Him all of myself. That is romance. That is the perfect, most holy of romances. Today was a romantic encounter with my God, which is so unbelievable considering how all of my ideas and concepts of the romance I thought I had a shot with fell apart this week. Does it hurt still? Yes. Does this make everything easy? No. Yet, I cannot disregard the fact that my God is trying to romance me, He is trying to show His deep love for me, and asking me to reciprocate. I think that in some small way I was able to do that today, in handing everything over, in reflecting on the ocean of His mercy, in considering the facts that I just want to be loved romantically. He knows the needs of my heart, and He decided to give them to me today, just in a way which was unexpected. In Your presence God, I'm completely satisfied...