Day 79.

Now I don’t presume to understand the mind of God, I often have no idea where I am going even though I feel His leading. I cannot see the road ahead, and neither can I be certain where it will end up. I cannot even know for sure if I am following the will of God. The fact that I think I am doing God’s will does not actually mean for sure that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please God does in fact please Him! The main thing in life is to make the main thing the main thing. And the main thing in a life of faith is to focus not on our performance but on our relationship with Him. The relationship that love affords is the closest thing on earth to an example of how God loves us and wants to relate to us.

As I now contemplated each Sabbath without her, I was reminded of the great spiritual revelation that I had had. As I reflected on this new love, I was reminded of how God loved me passionately like a lover loves his beloved. Like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, the greatest gift we can return to Him is to love Him. True love is a spiritual thing because it becomes a mirror of His love for us. We are most like God when we love.

To be loved one must want to love. I wanted to love her, and for this I felt compelled to go to her side, driven by the ungovernable emotion, and also a sense of providence and divine appointment. The punishment for not dreaming is to be as we were – diminished and alone.

As I felt compelled to go, I was also tormented by the fear that my imagination had taken me to a world that was not real. My dreams were also tormented by the almond blossoms of time. I was no longer young! In the battle of my imaginings, over the ensuing weeks, I recreated over and over the scene when next we would meet. I struggled with the ludicrousness of falling in love from a distance.