Love--Mixed Messages



I think love is a good theme to sum up my weekend. You might be thinking, "Duh, you're engaged. Love sums up your life right now." That's semi-accurate. Though I could think of some other words like stress, busyness, balancing-act, change (many things I don't deal with well). However, this is not completely about that. Aren't you tired of me gushing about my hot hunk-o-man-candy by now anyways? Good, I'm not either. Friday night I paid a visit to one person so much of my heart is dedicated to loving: Nicole Williams. I wish I could tell you we did something really cool. But we mostly just talked. Girls can do that. It was so good for my soul to get caught up on her life. We also ate Chinese food and watched a girlie movie called: Beauty and the Briefcase. Melt. Doesn't that sound like something I would like? It's one of those low-budget films that never makes it past the ABC family channel.

Love according to Beauty and the Briefcase:

Besides some sketchy sexual morals this actually put forward a pretty good message about love. The main character Lain played by Hilary Duff (who I love from my Lizzie Mcguire days) made up an idealized man who she called her "Magic Man." Amongst the checklist she created to find him were "has a sexy accent," "plays an instrument," and "takes me on spontaneous international vacations." This might be better than her friend's standards which only required men to be "breathing" and "cute." It takes perceived failure vocationally and socially, but by the end of the movie Lain realizes that the ways she views love is unhealthy. She ends up falling for someone that only meets one of her requirements (he plays the harmonica). A few things about them make the two a compatible couple. She is strong where he is weak and vice-versa. They encourage and challenge each other. Most of all, their relationship isn't a fantasy. It is real. Lain realizes that in the end, that is WAY better.

Saturday, after registering at Bed Bath and Beyond (you can check it out online to see some of the crazy cool, and ridiculous stuff we registered for) Philip and I went to the free movie at the Compton Student Union Building: Tangled.

Love according to Tangled:
This is a twist on the classic fairytale: Rapunzal. I noticed something about the two main characters who *spoiler alert* fell in love. They were vulnerable with one another. The moment these two began showing signs of having ushy-gushy feelings for each other was after each shared their biggest personal secret with the other person. They grew closer over talking about their less-than-pretty family backgrounds. It was vulnerability that brought Rapunzal and Eugene together.



Love according church today:

We sang this song in church today and these lyrics really struck me:

This is love:

Jesus came and died and gave His life for us.

My pastor said he gets asked a lot, "How could a loving God send people to hell?" That's a good question. But what if it's not the right question? Pastor Aaron went on "What if our loving God doesn't send people to hell. What if He bends over backwards to make it possible for everyone to know that they can choose heaven?" God gave the blood of His own child to make sure we could be reconciled to Him. God's reaching a hand down and we have to reach back and grab it. He won't force us to choose Him.

That's the kind of love I want to give Philip. I want to willingly lay my life down, daily, to help him be lifted up.