Perfect Love
By Tim Tron
Burke County
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:18-19
The closeness of her body against his warmed him from within. She was too young for him, at least what he considered the difference is too significant from where he stood in life. He was not married, nor had he ever taken time to cultivate a relationship with a woman. His life had been devoted to serving others, putting other’s needs before his own. Time passed by, and now with specks of gray spattered long his temples, he knew life for him may never be like others.
There may never be that “perfect” someone.
Yet, the young lady came to him seeking something she seemed to find in him. Confiding in him her deepest charges against her heart, she seemed to want more from him than he had envisioned. She wasn’t a stranger to him, so this encounter was not their first. Growing accustomed to her visits, he noticed that she seemed more amiable with each meeting than the last. So, he wasn’t surprised when she leaned into him, turning her head and pressing her lips upon his neck. There it was, an undeniable affection that stirred emotions within him that had long ago transpired.
True love knows no boundaries.
He quickly tried to dismiss it, but she moved not away but instead moved her body’s soft edges closer into his. He could feel her warmth through the clothing. Her heartbeat near his own. His mind sought only to seek that love from which emanated from this temporal beauty and to separate it from the desires of his flesh before it became a sin. The love of Jesus, from which the passion of Christ fills our soul with hope of life eternal, came to his mind, and he sought to feel that in this physical embrace. The feeling of being loved, no matter the individual that ultimately a comely breath of heartbeat which stirs one’s inner creature so profoundly that nothing else seems to matter was that which he sought. To this desire, he pushed the internal embrace seeking its purity and not that of the other. Try as he might, even that brief passing feeling, so acceptable, so revealing, so overwhelmingly needed was but merely an infinitesimally tiny speck of what he sought – God’s love.
He awoke from the dream, still stirred from the passion of its grip upon his soul.
Those fleeting moments of a desire within, to know the love of another moved him to seek the feeling now conscious. That deep burning intensity within the soul, that longing for another individual – to become one with your being, something that had eluded him most of his life, was a feeling for which he wanted to know of God. It was something beyond the sexual, something beyond the temptations of the flesh; no, it was a love from whence flowed a caring which intertwined within the heart, piercing into the very depths of one’s existence.
This perfect love like those brief moments of two sweethearts who first find what they believe to be their true love – their minds swirling with passions until it seems nothing else can permeate their thoughts than that which causeth their collective breath to escape. For on the surface, this is the reaction of the natural man. Inside, your heart quickens at the idea of that first love, and with it, all else seems lost. This is the Love for which God has for each of us, reaching farther than the natural desires but deep within. It is there for us should we awaken to its embrace upon our being. A passion for which those blissful lusts of our human comprehension find merely fleeting; whereas, His love for us is eternal. We cannot escape its reaches, for as high as is the sky, as deep as the oceans; it encompasses all that we can fathom and more. There is no escaping God’s love for us. For what we may only be able to ascertain for a few passing seconds, these can be multiplied into infinity, something beyond our ability to understand – for it is God who hath made us and not of ourselves.
Yet, man’s terrestrial love can never come close to God’s love. Like the tempest upon the sea, it too passes, and before you know it, it is gone. In its passing, there is an emptiness. Too often, we seek to fill the void, and for many, this desire leads to other addictions of the fleshless wholesome, and often much more destructive. When one finds a love of their life, they must realize that it must be seen through the eyes of faith, not the flesh. Through God, perfect love can be found. Without Him guiding our paths, our lusts rule our body and mind. In those carnal desires of the flesh, we make choices about situations, individuals, and actions that are usually based upon the sensual. These, for many, become their bondage for life on this earth. Unable to break free, they are entombed in a life that often seems to lead to dead ends. Sadly, many relationships start with such promise only to find in a short time that they are another statistic in divorce court. Had their consummation of that first love been based upon a relationship with God the Father, they would have had an entirely different lens through which they sought one another. It is through this faith in God that perfect love can be found.
This perfect love, when we can allow it to enter into our hearts, can cast out all other thoughts. Comparing it again to the first love, all other feelings seem to slip away – water through the fingertips. So enamored with us, it flows through us, seeking every ounce of our existence. With it, there is no room for darkness, for when the light shines within, all fears are cast aside. As it is said, the darkest hour is before dawn. Once the sunrise begins to paint its golden rays upon the earth’s canvas, even the most wretched moments can start to seem less doomed. It is this love within, the one that can cast out all our fears, that we can finally escape the torments of this world.
Every once in a great while, in this life, we are afforded glimpses into those feelings of the Heavenly realm. It is in these moments, these brilliantly tiny snapshots of life eternal, that God allows us to feel, see, or sense something that can be multiplied by untold numbers for which we cannot begin to fathom. It is these moments when, either in dreams, visions, or rare glimpses during the conscious world, we are provided something of God’s creation to reach us within. There within those fractional moments in time, we can feel the love of God and can be comforted evermore. For knowing that we can love because he first loved us makes all the difference in the world and beyond.
Seek him with all your heart, and you too will find perfect love.
Thanks be to God.
Timothy W. Tron lives in Collettsville, NC. with his family. He is the former Director of the Trail of Faith in Valdese, where he still volunteers and helps with tours. He is the author of a new Christian series, “Children of the Light”, with the first book being, “Bruecke to Heaven”, and his recent book, being the second, “The Light in the Darkness”. He is an active blogger, artist, and musician. Timothy also has a BSEE from UF, and is a Lay Speaker. He can be reached at twtron@live.com. You can visit his website at //www.timothywtron.com/ or see more of his writings HERE.
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