So...tomorrow I leave for RYM...Reformed Youth Movement...Im anticipating it, it will be an adventure. Jane shall be attending along with myself and my youthgroup. Laguna Beach, panama city....good times have been had there on many a spring break haha. So, I was thinking (always dangerous) about the concept of falling in love. Calvin and I (bro, aren't you happy I mentioned you?!?) were talking about it and I asked a rather ridiculous question. Do we have a choice about falling in love? I suppose I asked knowing I wouldn't get an answer, and Im almost okay with that simply because me knowing the answer wouldn't actually change anything. The answer is true whether or not I know it. But still, I felt the need to ask because I was thinking out love and how falling in love is just a complicated subject. And so without going into my personal life, I asked him about falling in love. Now, I have often wondered if love is the sort of thing that varies from person to person. I mean, I know there is a solid definition of love in the Bible. So that is the foundation for love. But to what extent do you have to feel for a person, before you are in love. I mean, I think it rather foolish for us to believe there is one universal point at which every single person who falls inlove crosses from being just "in like" with someone to being more than that. It seems like a dumb idea to view "falling" in love that way...but yet I still think we tend to do so. In reality we look, at least I do, at love and think "I doubt they are really in love." But most of the time I do that because a)Im just a cynical, wretched person. And b) my opinion of how love will occur does not usually match up with their situation. For instance, age or how long they've been dating etc. But honestly, I don't really believe that I am in a position to do that...to look at them and decide. I mean, there's not actually an age at which falling in love becomes okay. It does become more likely when one is older, but still. There is not a certain length of time which one must be dating another before it becomes appropriate to care that deeply about them. In fact, you should almost be sure enough before you date them that they are the type of person you can and should fall in love with. I know that we are all attracted to others...we were made that way. I am beginning to believe that we were also made with the desire to fall in love with another person. So I understand why people are so quick to say they are in love, I really do. Because we want to be, so we convince ourselves we are. But this presents a problem. Often times certain things are justified because you are in love, (or so says the world) so you convince yourself that you can do them. But you aren't really in love. Secondly, you think that what you have is love so when things don't work out, you get to that same point with another person, dating for only weeks maybe, and you think you are in love. So you have lowered your standard of love, basically missing out on part of what you were made for. That is where my cynicism came from..But back to my original question...Do we have a choice? I think we have a choice in falling in love as much as we have a choice in most other things. I believe that we don't have a choice about initial attractions, but developing our feelings is something that is often times up to us. But then I think about it another way, if it's God's will for say Joe & Dynah to be together, then do they really have a choice in it because their love was ordained by God so it wasn't an option. It was meant to happen...so Im left quite confused on the subject. As I said before, I'm left with unanswered questions....I'd love to know the answers, but I'm not sure I ever will. Feel free to speculate...
mer
