The love thing

I feel very strongly about the whole love thing.

I do not quite know what it is in me (I hope it is God) that lets me get so caught up in feeling for others when they are failing to find the hope in life, if they are sitting in a big fat messy cloud of a problem, of despair, of discouragment. I am not an extremely emotional person. I am not someone that gets teary during movies – unless my mind is making some odd connection with real life. I find myself sitting a looking at what issue I must war next and know that I can do it with God’s help (Although that does more often now need to come through someone else as I seem to have passed off my self reliance for something greater – which is not always entirely convinient.). I struggle more for others than I do for myself.

I think love is important. I think we underestimate love in friendships. We instead exculsively tie love to relationships of the truly that kind.

I was reading tonight something about Eve. I’ve never really bothered looking at Eve’s story as its always the yep, I know it. Woman plus snake plus apple (yeah Granny Smith) plus temptation equals first submission to temptation equals first sin, followed closely by offer to male, which can’t be resisted, hence second sin. Goodbye – thus the fall of mankind. Farewell garden, farewell easy life, farewell condensed beauty. Hello desert, hardwork, painful childbirth (and child rearing), discord and difficult relationships.

I have in my travels around the outskirts of theology and looking at I guess the whole ‘being a woman’ in this world of two kinds of humans, definitely noticed the original blueprint woman. Her perfection before everything was interferred with, and have had the whole word ‘ezer’ flashed in my face when covering various ‘women and submission and leadership’ jargon.

Ezer. First ignored by biblical scholars and translated helpmeet/helper or something, then eventually realised and pushed to strong helper, and then further to actually mean something more like warrior (no the whole warrior idea doesn’t fully appeal to me – probably because it sounds kind of feminist, but it definitely has merit).

It was also dumped primarily in the marriage setting. Where it actually sort of extends further.

This is what frustrates me. Why women are expected to only be exclusively helpful to their husbands/husbands to be when we should be (to an extent) be allies/friends/ezers to our male friends. It’s not a practice thing – well perhaps, but a love thing.

1 John 4:7-12:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son[into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

It is unreasonable to suggest that we could improve everyone in the love arena.

“After Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit, relationships between men and women collapsed from unity into tension and conflict. Instead of being valued as the man’s strongest ally and spiritual resource, the ezer became an object to possess and control. The noble calling to rule and subdue the earth in God’s name was peverted…” (Curtis James, Carolyn)

I find it quite frustrating (as I said before) where Christian guys dance along the edge of this. I am not dissing guys or even talking about how people fail in treating females. These are well meaning guys who (and I’m sorry but you probably do know who you are) will not do something individually with a girl because it might look like a date when it isn’t. Writing this out has made things a little clearer and has reminded me that yes – the whole ‘fall’ did happen, so of course there is still this underlying impression that ‘ezers (ie: females) are/can be possessable’ etc. But sitting in this role as a friend?

I remember hearing something, probably from that Josh Harris sermon (haha, quick run before it’s too late!) about giving guys the freedom to go and have lunch or whatever, with females without the pressure of ‘something more’ being there.

Why does this always hang over our heads with friendships with the opposite sex? A platonic relationship is apparently rarely possible without at some point in time one individual being attracted to the other – if not both (and then guess what happens!)

It annoys me, because if we looked at things differently. If we didn’t have so many expectations or just normalities I think we might function with a lot more freedom. Can’t we just be honest with eachother about where things stand, be genuine friends and leave things until circumstances change (if ever)? Or is it too much to hope to ignore the discord, disunity, and the desert loneliness?

3 Comments

  1. said:

    Thankyou Bec. That was an incredibly refreshing post. I too have heard the Josh Harris Sermon, and I too quote it often [run indeed!]
    To find a platonic friendship is incredibly priceless, something I am grateful for. Yet as comfortable and contented as the two of us are in such a friendship, it is the people around us which make life difficult. I get so tired of people asking and suggesting. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times we assure people we are but merely wonderful friends. The concept seems to allude too many. And i completely agree with you on the idea of keeping communication clear in order to avoid the traps which may arise in such a friendship. We have been honest, and we share a deeper level because of it, without the other ever being concerned that their actions are being ‘read into’. It is a truely beautiful thing.

    I encourage you big time Bec. I appreciate your thoughts so much!

    your a thinker, and I love it about you. Your mind gets my mind ticking over…your one of a kind [and I mean that in the best way I possibly could]

    again…thankyou
    Jess xoxo

    February 7, 2006
    Reply
  2. said:

    Yes bec well said, and i do agree with what you are say. How for whatever reason guys and girls can’t be good friends, and if they are there ‘must’ be something more.

    However you still need to realise what goes on within a man’s head. esp since we live in this broken world.

    If you are really interested in discovering what goes through a man’s eyes, mind and heart have a read of ‘every man’s battle’ by Stephen Arterburn & Fred Stoeker. However the information within this book can be really confronting and you may look at guys a little differently.

    All guys do or have struggled with this stuff, as it is part of our nature, and any guy that denies it is a lier or is themselves very nieve.

    Also remember that who ever you date / marry one day doesn’t know you’ve read this. So releive them the pain by showing them this book. Hiding this knowledge you have from them may end in great hurt.

    I have finished reading my copy but at this stage i have promised it to some one, but if you ask me i can add you to the list.

    Happy discovering

    February 8, 2006
    Reply
  3. said:

    i like having guys as friends. seriously, there have only been one or two guys who im close friends with, that i havent at some stage liked though.

    and its bad when other people tease you that you do like them. becuase that can sometimes put the thought into your mind.

    err. i dont know what im saying…

    February 8, 2006
    Reply

Leave a Reply to Cozmos

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *