The End (of unhappy perceptions in love)

I thought I'd start with the end in order to more fully embrace this new blogging lifestyle I've chosen for myself.

Disclaimer: (this one's serious)

I have been trying recently to figure out what it was about having a romantic relationship that made it so appealing. The only answer I could come up with was that people are lonely. We seem to think that all the pain would disappear if we were in one. I disagree. Maybe temporarily the pain would subside... or be partially forgotten... but part of the purpose of a lasting relationship is to bring challenges to the surface. It demands all of our compassion, acceptance, release, forgiveness, sacrifice, and selflessness. When we are truly "in love", we find ourselves in more pain than we ever were before. Maybe this is why so many of us fail. We seem to think that love is the means by which we can be rescued, when in fact, it is the means by which we grow. It isn't the absence of certain people in our lives that causes us pain, but rather our unconscious reluctance to let that growth take place.

Our job is not to look for love... our job is to look for all the barriers we hold against its coming. We seek desperately for the perfect person, but it is that same desperation that leads to its destruction once it gets here. Our real goal in love then, is not to find someone attractive enough to support – but to support someone in being attractive. No one is anything less than the possibility of perfection that lies within them. Here on earth, no one is ever "finished". The top of one mountain is always the bottom of another. That moment we fall in love, is actually the moment a light is cast on the truth about someone in their entirety. And as soon as that light appears, fear does everything in its power to shade it. Our hope for the "perfect person" who just hasn't arrived yet is the greatest form of that shade.

I believe that when you are looking for something perfect, God sends you the exact opposite. He sends you something better: Someone with whom you are given the opportunity to work through the places in yourself that need to be repaired before you're ready for him or for her. Fear would tell you that REAL life doesn't begin until he or she gets here. Yet it persists whether we choose to take advantage of the "northern stars" in our path or not. But when they do arrive, in our moment of greatest preparation, we are given an opportunity to perceive them in a realm of perfection that doesn't exist in fear. It is a place in our hearts where we are able to continually see their sculpture in the unfinished stone. It then becomes our opportunity, whether we are prepared to or not, to remind them of the masterpiece within. The real "happy ending" isn't an ending at all...it is merely an end of unhappy perception.