why calvinists are more romantic & other things i've learned about love

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(photo via permanent sunshine)

I wrote this two-part series for StartMarriageRight.com, a recently-launched site by Moody Publishers. (Oh, and let the record show that the title is tongue-in-cheek. Mostly. And will be explained in Part 2.) Here's a piece of it:

Pain. Let's just get this off the table once and for all. A friend of mine told me on the phone recently, about how she was hesitant to say anything confrontational to a guy who has given her special attention on-and-off for three years. She's afraid to do something that may cause her pain. "Okay," I said something that had been brewing in my heart for weeks but was never verbalized, "let's just forget this pain thing altogether. It's not worth being a factor in your decisions. Let's just face it right now that if you date the guy, and get engaged, and then get married—he will hurt you. In some way, shape or form, he will because he is human and to live a human life is to have pain; and there is no relationship that isn't messy. And if the status quo continues, you will be pained as well by the 'what-if's.' So let's just get this pain thing off the table forever, because pain is going to happen." Thankfully, she took it graciously. She knows I was preaching to myself.

That being said, pain is real and will always be present in this body. Instead of running away from it, the Christian call has always been a unique one—that we must learn to view pain as a carrier. Pain carries us to the arms of the Father. Pain brings us to a place where we are moldable, pliable in the hands of God.

Read the whole thing here.