“Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.” ~Robert Sternberg
I spoke with God today.
I speak with Him daily.
I didn’t expect to, but circumstances required correspondence.
Whether it was He who needed to speak with me, or I who needed to speak with Him, I cannot say. I won’t dare to speculate the origins of requirement, but I will say I’m grateful for the opportunity to reconnect with a father I had once turned away from.
Not a decision made out of anger or spite, but rather choice I made as I endeavored to seek understanding.
Understanding of what, though?
That’s the conundrum of the ages.
In my case, I sought logic.
In His case, He sought nothing.
This is parental love.
Unconditional.
Unrelenting.
Unwavering.
My dad once said, “When you have children of your own, you will one day understand the love a parent has for his children.”
He was correct.
There is nothing I wouldn’t forgive of my children. Sure, I may be upset with academic performance that isn’t up to par, but always I will love them.
I’ll hold them accountable for their behavior, but I’ll guide them along the way to greater understanding.
This is love.
This is parental love.
And as I navigate the troubled waters of life, I realize that this is how I am being held accountable and guided through life by a Father whose love is unconditional and unwavering.
And as every child will trust his or her father—more often than not, a daughter will revere her father more than the son will revere him—at the end of the day, it all comes down to trust.
We trust our parents.
We trust our God.
Divergent faiths aside, our faith remains unwavering.
And as such, our Father’s love remains as unconditional as promised in Scripture.
To that end, I reflect on my life.
The path that led me to the now.
The lost loves, the almost was, the could have been that never came to be are all instances where God knew better than I thought I knew.
And when I decided to pray, and ask Him to lead me along a path toward my epic love, my happiness, my fate… I relinquished all control to His will.
I’d never done that before today.
It just didn’t seem logical.
But when I did, I found a myriad of blessings that surpassed my expectations—if one is permitted to have any expectations about happiness and love—and I went with it.
My tears made a sea, and my sea led me to a horizon.
A horizon where the moon kisses the ocean with a silence and gentle caress that even heaven cannot mimic. And if it’s true that there’s a difference between a love of your life and a once in a lifetime love, I believe it now.
I’ll swim without giving up hope of finding her shore.
I’ll wait until she finds me in the darkness.
I’ll remain where she needs me until the day she leaves.
This is love.
Unconditional.
Unrelenting.
Unwavering.
And when the day comes that she looks back on the way that I loved her, she’ll know I loved her all the way.
I loved her until it broke my heart and her name spilled out onto the canvas of her life.
What better way to love than the way God intended?
Felix Alexander Writer 