he & she

When a man pursues his bride as the Lord Jesus pursues His Bride (that's us, by the way) the eternal empowers the tangible, and the tangible embodies the eternal.

The Bible calls this parallel between tangible and eternal Romance a “great mystery,” a phrase used only once in all of Scripture (Ephesians 5:32 KJV).

The eternal empowers the tangible when he & she build on the blueprints for a relationship that prevails against the enemies of Romance — the same five foundations that Christ and His Bride build on:

his love
the source of Romance
His Love pursues Her Trust by making the first move, to express to her just how exclusively valuable she is to him.

her trust
the potential for Romance
Her Trust permits the ongoing exchanges of transparent Intimate Talk between the two of them.

intimate talk
the life of Romance
Intimate Talk avails the mutual sharing of secret concerns, hopes, and dreams to intertwine them with an internal Cohesion.

cohesion
the strength of Romance
Cohesion prepares an unmarried couple to pursue Marriage, and empowers a married couple to keep it.

marriage
the fulfillment of Romance
Marriage consummates their oneness from the inside out, to saturate their souls with a permanent joy.

As I read the parable of a man pursuing “one pearl of great price” (Matthew 13:46), the Lord told me to leave Seattle and seek my own pearl at a certain church in San Antonio, Texas.

So on September 10^th 2000, I packed up for a one-way move to pursue a perfect stranger.

After noticing and meeting her, and then talking with her for several hours, she showed me a one-time prayer-letter she had written before we met — asking God to send her the right man.

I noticed that the date she had penned on her letter was the exact same day I packed my car, from over 2,000 miles away, for the road trip that would change our lives forever.

On December 22^nd 2001, I married the most beautiful girl my eyes will ever see.

The tangible embodies the eternal when he & she choose to build on what will never die; to set their own stage for a prevailing Romance, a happier family, and to be a tangible picture of what Christ wants to have with us forever.

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