Wednesday, May 9, 2012

love and duty

I'm going to try and make this a shorter blog because I really want you to take the time to watch the clip below (about 9 minutes).

I watched a movie today and there was a quote from it that stuck out to me.
A Nun was speaking to a woman who said that she was staying with her husband, who was a Doctor overseas in the middle of an epidemic outbreak of Cholera, because it was her duty.
This was the Nun's response:

"...I fell in love when I was 17....with God....a foolish girl with romantic notions about the life of a religious...but my love was passionate.  Over the years, my feelings have changed....He's disappointed me, ignored me.  We've settled in to a relationship of peaceful indifference...the old husband and wife who sit side by side on the sofa but rarely speak.  He knows I will never leave Him- this is my duty, but when love and duty are one, then grace is within you."  

I loved her honesty.
Maybe some of you are not as flawed as me and have never felt disappointed or ignored by God...but I have, and King David did....and lots of others too.  Loving God is not a matter of perfection, but a matter of sincerely flawed, human devotion and a God who keeps His vows.

Being a foolish, romantic girl myself, the thought of, "peaceful indifference," that the nun describes, makes me ill- but I get it.  Life can easily come to this.  Relationship with God can easily come to this...but I have to believe that, though my devotion can sometimes be fleeting, He is not indifferent about me.

Then, I opened my email and saw that a friend had sent me the link to this clip, (you may have seen it on facebook already, but for those of you who are not connected to the social network...like myself...here it is :-)


I cried from beginning to end at this display of the faithful love of God. This made me think even more about the Nun's quote because Larissa really seemed to embody the picture of both duty and love...and I imagine that the only way she would have the ability to love this way is through the grace within her...that comes from God.

"He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord"