Is Love Enough?

Put together a (soppy) love-story, dazzling displays of high flying and web-spinning interspersed with literally 'electrifying' battles and you can walk away quite satisfied with the latest Hollywood re-boot of SpiderMan 2, altho frankly SpiderMan doesn't rank very high in my list of super-heroes to drool over as I find his alter-ego Peter Parker kind of nerdy. I like my super-heroes handsome, funny, charming, dramatic and bigger than life.

But watching the on/off somewhat torturous progress of the romance between Peter aka Spidey and his lady-love made me consider perhaps I have 'undervalued' this super-hero after all. Granted, Spidey or rather Andrew Garfield who played the part isn't exactly the quintessential virile handsome hunk who would score 10/10 in my books (though at certain angles he is cutesy enuf). And he can be dead-pan funny. But what touched my heart-strings was the underlying current of love that made this super-hero so very 'human' beneath his costume. When he flung his father's briefcase into his cupboard -unopened- it spoke volumes of the effect of his parents' abandonment of him as a kid. Likewise when he turned up unannounced to (literally) offer a shoulder to his childhood friend (and eventual enemy) Harry, it showed this super-hero had a heart that's in the right place for those in need. And of coz the tussle between choosing to leave or to chase his fair lady brings out all the pathos of relationships, which are undeniably rather complicated affairs, no matter how simple we try to reduce it to. 

But I guess that's what and how love is, really. So it wasn't the usual triumphing of good over evil plot but rather the tragedy of a love lost that lingered in my mind, as the hero grieved over the death of the lady of his heart, who ironically was killed because he managed to save her. What a dumb way to go, just when everything finally seemed to be working out between them. What's the point of loving so much and so deep? How cruel to cut a perfect dream to shreds. But sometimes (many times perhaps?) perfect dreams don't come true. 

I woke up to my 54th birthday in this kind of pensive mood. As the day wore on, I know I have much to be grateful for - the flowers, cake, food, chocs, presents, good/great wishes and prayers from family, frens, church folks. All evidence of how much I am loved and thought about. I know too there are other faithful souls who don't communicate all that often or that much with me, yet are supporting me in unseen, unheard and even unsolicited prayer, to whom I can never say Tq enough. Yep, certainly birthdays make me so aware of what/who I have in my life. Yet adding another 365 days to the number of days of my life also makes me look back...with nostalgia, regret, even pain for all the past years slipped by so fast. The things I could have done better, the words that should or should never have been said. The dreams that held so much promise but never bloomed. The prayers that were uttered so confidently but remain unanswered as wishes yet to come true.

And I suddenly realized the one thing that I  have always held onto throughout all these years of following Jesus as my Lord, my God wasn't so much faith, clever deductions or logical reasoning - it was love. It is love that enables me to have the faith to believe and follow still. Yet, I wondered and I asked God, "Is love enough?" After all the loving, what's there to show except wistful memories of tears and laughter, joy and pain of lives intersecting with one another - sure to be 'gone with the wind' one day, any day for that matter. So if love isn't strong enough to bind   human souls who can physically see, hear, touch and sense each other; if ultimately no matter how powerful that attachment is, it will inevitably be severed by death -  what's there to talk about the love of an invisible, 'unfeel-able' God who doesn't seem much bothered about His creation anyway? After all, as Jesus remarked, "For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen" (1 John 4:20). If loving humans can't last beyond earthly life-times, what more something as nebulous as loving God??
The answer came unexpectedly through 'standard form' emails from 2 NGOs who has me on their subscriber-lists. One was captioned (most appropriately) "Celebrate a Day, or Celebrate a Future", emblazoned with the words, The Most Precious Gift.... HOPE, followed by a blurp asking for donations for the coming Mother's/Father's Day. The other was a birthday greeting with a short excerpt about a 101 year old lawyer who when asked how he managed to live so long quipped, "By not dying", followed by a more serious explanation, “I’m a firm believer that God has His hand in everything that happens. He is letting me live for some reason. I try to do the things that I believe He wants me to.” It ended with an inspirational quote, "If you know that God's hand is in everything, you can leave everything in God's hand".

The words from those 2 messages flitted through my mind throughout the day. But it was only as I sat typing out my thoughts that I managed to 'get it'. For as I see in my mind's eye the pierced hands of Jesus nailed to the cross, I know I was right that it is indeed all about love. But I am also wrong because it's not my love for Him, but rather His Love for me that will always be enough - for encompassed within those bleeding Hands stretched out to their maximum reach, is the most precious gift of Hope that celebrates not a day, but an entire future of forever days, forever alive without death (right into glorious eternity), and all dreams and prayers in accord with His perfectly good will do indeed come true. That is the wondrous power, not of any love, but amazing Redemption Love. I couldn't ask for, I can't get any greater blessing than this Love, freely given, not just on a birthday, but everyday of my life forever more. Thank You, Jesus.

"This is how God showed His love among us... not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent (Jesus) as an atoning sacrifice for our sins....We love because He first loved us" - 1 John 4:9-10, 19