It was early.  The pale blues and grays of dawn wound their way through the blinds of my bedroom.  Not quite dark and not quite light.  I rolled to one side in the comfort of my covers, eyes still closed yet aware I was no longer in the depths of sleep.  The still, small voice was speaking, awakening my heart and mind and asking me to remember what it felt like to be in love.

“Well, Lord…it’s been a while,” I replied.  And it has…years plural.  But once one has experienced “love,” the memories linger.  Don’t they?  Though far-off and far-removed, they still linger.

Like the sticky toffee pudding I had in Ireland over five years ago.  I’ve eaten nothing like it since….yet, if I stop and close my eyes, I can almost taste it again.  Warm, buttery caramel melted into soft, spongy cake…perfectly matched with the cool sweetness of vanilla ice cream.  Dessert heaven I tell you.

So I remember how it felt to be “in love.”   Butterflies floating around in my belly.  A perpetual grin on my face.  Even food didn’t taste the same.  Heart pounding as I anxiously awaited to hear to his voice again…to see his face.

I know why the Lord asked me to remember.  Because I’ve been asking Him to show me how He loves me.  The truth is my friend, I struggle with the idea of a sacred romance.  Perhaps because I don’t currently have anything to compare it to.  And maybe because it just sounds a little, well awkward.  Doesn’t it?  Do we even know what to do with the idea that God is wildly in love with us?

“Hang my locket around your neck, wear my ring on your finger.  Love in invincible facing danger and death.  Passion laughs at the terrors of hell.  The fire of love stops at nothing-it sweeps everything before it.  Flood waters can’t drown love, torrents of rain can’t put it out.”  Song of Solomon 8:6 The Message

Honestly, I would rather feel “awkward” than miss any part of the greatest love story ever told.  And it IS the greatest love story ever told.  You could have a big, movie-style romance and it would still never compare to His love.  Because no earthly love can ever save us.  Wonderful though it may be, only the covenant love of our Heavenly Father can rescue us from the deadly grave of our sin.

Song of Solomon, literally speaking is written in the context of romantic love between a man and a woman.  But figuratively, it is said to symbolize the intimate relationship Christ (the bridegroom) shares with his church (the bride).

And still, we wrestle.  We hold back.  We doubt.

Maybe we should ask ourselves…what roadblocks are standing in the way of fully entering in?  God wrote the love story when He sent Jesus to our fractured world.  He’s 100% in.  Why aren’t we?

Are we too much in our head?  Could it be that we’re trying to understand that which goes far beyond our realm of knowledge?   Are we comparing it to a broken and conditional earthly love?

Or, are we listening to lies instead of Truth?  Because the lies are real, my friend.  I’ve heard them.  They whisper in our ears that we are un-loveable…or that we have to work hard to earn His affection.

Graham Cooke says, “He loves you, because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because He loves you.  Because that’s what He is like.  And you will always be the beloved.”

I believe, like the scripture says above, that He will “stop at nothing”-He will woo and pursue to help us realize just how much He loves us.  For in perfect love, there is security in place of insecurity; rest in place of restlessness; peace in place of fear.  His love is our deep breath.

So let’s enter in.  Let’s step through the threshold of awkward into the sacred romance.  Let’s throw our arms around His neck in gratitude and adoration.

Because my friends, this love story never ends.