Love Letters

I’ve been studying, reading, and watching a LOT of Shakespearean plays lately. I’m taking a Shakespeare course for my English degree and as such my love for, well, love, has been renewed. There’s something so timeless and beautiful about seeing romance take the stage. I’m reminded of my youthful days of crushes, love notes, mixed tapes, and first dates. I remember sending messages to cute boys through a trusted friend and watching discretely from behind a locker to gauge their reaction. The agonizing anticipation of waiting for a phone call, or worse, waiting for a letter in the mail, was more than any young heart could bear. Wretched as it was riding the roller coaster of romance, sometimes I quite miss it.

There were two seasons during our courtship in which Zach and I were separated. Once when he worked at a camp for an entire summer, and again when he traveled to Africa for a lengthy mission trip. While in Africa, phone calls were impossible, as was sending mail, so Zach took to writing to me in a daily journal. He filled every page of a spiral notebook during our three weeks apart. Meanwhile, back at home, my thoughts were consumed with Zach. I listened to love songs on repeat. I moped, sulked, and cried at the drop of a hat; I missed him so. I constantly calculated the time difference between California and Cameroon, wondering what Zach was doing right at that moment. I was the very definition of lovesick.

When he returned home, Zach gave me the journal he’d kept so faithfully. I vividly remember the anticipation I felt bringing that notebook back to my apartment. I couldn’t wait to curl up in my bed with a mug of hot chocolate and dive in. I knew it wasn’t to be read in bits and pieces, or flipped through nonchalantly while on break from work. I wanted to give myself as many hours as I needed to immerse myself in the words of my beloved. I had been on the fence about the seriousness of our relationship until then, but Zach’s love letters changed everything for me. I knew I never wanted to be separated from him again. Soon we made plans to steer our relationship toward marriage.

If you’ve ever received a love letter you know it stirs something inside you, warming you from the inside out. To be pursued in such a way is more than flattering, it’s an honor. That anyone would take the time to put pen to paper and divulge the intimate workings of their heart and mind, placing you at the center, is love at its best. Zach’s letters made his love for me real. When I saw his feelings displayed on the pages in front of me I finally understood the depth of his devotion. I’m so glad I didn’t rush through them, toss them aside for another time, or only give them a mere glance. Stealing away under the covers with hours stretched before me to read and re-read as many times as I wanted to felt so luxurious, and it gave Zach’s words the time they deserved. Anytime Zach and I were apart after that and lovesickness reared its head, I pulled out his love letters to satiate my longing heart.

I confess, I rarely experience symptoms of lovesickness anymore. I still love my husband with all my heart of course, but after eighteen years together, we don’t exactly pine for each other the way we did in those early years of our relationship. We still exchange cards every now and then, and while we appreciate the words we don’t relish them the way we used to. It’s become easy to take love notes for granted after all this time. Zach has a shoebox tucked away in the corner of our closet. It’s a very old shoebox, worn around the edges, and the Nike “swoosh” printed on the side has faded. The lid doesn’t close anymore; the contents inside cause the cardboard top to swell. Today I pulled this shoebox down from its high shelf, accidentally spilling it all over the closet floor. I sat amongst the mess and sifted through eighteen years worth of love letters Zach’s received from me. Every note, every card, every scribble on a post-it I’ve ever written to my husband since the time we started dating, was inside that box. It’s a treasury of my enduring love, and it grows larger and more precious with time. It did my soul good to revisit those enamoring feelings of love, passion, and fidelity. After spending over an hour savoring love letters of the past, my heart remembered what it meant to not only love Zach, but to be in love with him. I may need to work a bit harder at expressing it, but the feelings are still very much alive. They just needed some uncovering. My heart for God needs the same reminder.

I’ve been in a relationship with Jesus for twenty-eight years, much longer than I’ve been in a relationship with Zach. At the tender age of twelve, Jesus became my first love. But after all this time it’s become easy to take His written words to me for granted. Billy Graham famously said, “The Bible is God’s love letter to us.” It’s a lovely idea, but reading the Bible sometimes feels like a chore, the pages reading more like a textbook than a love letter. I experience brief moments of infatuation with Jesus, reminiscent of my early years with Him, but they don’t last. A worship song will bring me to tears, a devotional reading will cause me to pause and sit in His truth, but then I move on with my day and that noticeable change in my heart is gone as quickly as it came. What if I anticipated my time in God’s Word the way I anticipated reading Zach’s love letters? What if I carved out time in my day to settle in, cozy up, and indulge in the pages of my Bible as if they were written just for me? What if I stopped glancing at my Bible as it sits closed on the coffee table? What if I stopped casually flipping to a verse or two for reference's sake and instead gave it the attention it deserves? What if I recognized scripture as evidence of God’s passionate and relentless pursuit of me, and let that warm me from the inside out? What if I pined for God whenever my heart strayed or my attention withdrew from Him, and I satisfied my longing for Him only by reading His word? I imagine you’d see quite a difference in me, the same kind of difference my friends and family saw in me when I’d fallen head over heels in love with Zach. I was consumed. Everything I did was with Zach in mind. I lived for his happiness. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face because I knew he felt the same way about me. So it is with God.

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything else. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evening, how you spend your weekend, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything,” (Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms). If you’ve ever been in love you know how true this is. When we’re in love, the rose-colored glasses we wear paint everything in a warmer light. When we are in love with God the same is true. Falling in love is easy enough, but staying in love takes work. Like a marriage that has worn comfortably over time or like love letters that are stashed away on a shelf, rekindling the flame takes my time, purpose, and thoughtfulness. In the same way I chose to open the box of my love letters to Zach and sit among them for as long as I needed, I must choose to sit in God’s Word. It’s there I will see His unchanging, relentless pursuit of me.

I have aged. I have grown complacent. The shine of my new faith has long since worn off. How miraculous it is that God’s love for me has only grown stronger. He adores me just as much today as He did the first day I welcomed Him into my heart. There is nothing worn, dusty, or subdued about His love for me. His passion for me is still aflame; no rekindling is needed. I only need to read His love letters to see that. With time and practice, I will begin to crave hearing from Him the way I craved a note or phone call as a new wife. I will become so desperate for time with Jesus that I will do whatever it takes to sit at His feet with as much time as I need to be made whole again. May it never fail to strike me as awesome that the Creator of the World is madly in love with me. I know it full well, and everything I do should be different because of it.

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” -Psalm 42:1-2

“For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.” -Psalm 117:2