To love at all is to be vulnerable

Found this on this webpage...http://theunboundedspirit.com/this-comic-about-love-will-touch-your-heart/. Fantastic depiction of the vulnerability and beauty of love.

Rise in couples who split within 5 years

Saw this on Straits Times breaking news: http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/rise-couples-who-split-within-five-years-20140216.

Indeed it's breaking news: vow-breaking, commitment-breaking, heart-breaking news. Here's the excerpt:

"The first five years of marriage are proving a challenge for more Singapore couples - that is when partners stray, and a rising number of marriages break down. 

A study on straying couples by Touch Family Services found that slightly more than half the 164 respondents polled had affairs within five years of marriage. For one in three, the affairs happened in the first two years of married life. 

The number of marriages which ended in divorce under five years rose from 272 in 1980 to 1,268 in 2012. 

But those married for five to nine years continued to make up the largest group of divorcing couples over that period - 617 in 1980, and 2,084 in 2012."

Ohhh, do mourn the lost art of commitment, discipline, love, trust and communication. In this predominantly relativistic, hedonistic and nihilistic world we live in, things will only get worse...never better.

As we denounce the "old", "traditional" and "conventional" way of doing things without actually asking "why" at deeper levels, we're simply heading for destruction.

We live in a time where we know so much - information all at our fingertips - yet understand so little. Bless this generation Lord and may Your call in my life to see this generation turn back to you come to past soon.

I remember this phrase from the song "Gone" by Switchfoot that says:

"...we got information in the information age but do we know, what life is?

Outside of our convenient Lexus cages..."

If you're free, do give this song a listen. It's a fantastic song about life about how life is just so fleeting and what really matters in life. Here's the lyric video below :)

We were made to be lovers

Reading this book called "UN-Christian" by David Kinnaman now. He's the president of "The Barna Group" that provides research and resources that facilitate spiritual transformation in people's lives.

For this book, this organization did in-depth research on a few thousand Americans (by age group and by belief group), asking them about their experience and impression of Christianity.

Yup, this paragraph really hit me and I think it really defines what Christians are to be. It's found toward the end of chapter 6 "Sheltered". Lemme space out the sentences...

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We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless.

We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers.

We won't solve all mysteries, and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way.

We were made to be lovers, bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

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We were made to love and to exhaust ourselves in loving - to pour and pour and pour...And we can only pour when we are filled...filled by an infinite, perfect source of love that will never run dry.

Just as I was typing this post, I came across this tweet on my twitter feed which also really spoke right to me:

"When you walk in love, you give up your right to be right."

RT @PrayInFaith 

This tweet really spoke to me because I seldom give up my right to be right. When I'm right, and when you're wrong, I make sure the right and wrong distinction is made perfectly clear.

This irks people. Yes, it's their pride that refuses to admit that they're wrong. Everyone has pride. But love triumphs all.

Showing love by giving up the argument or letting people have their way (discretionary) is a thousand times more powerful than showing them that they're wrong and driving home the right-ness of your righteousness.

Yup, this is one area I really need to work on. My unwavering adherence to my definitions and philosophies (which stands unbeaten) are sometimes a barrier to my show of love...

So help me Lord, soften my heart, lubricate it with Your perfect, unfailing, unending and steadfast love. Lemme end off with a few verses.

"Let all that you do be done in love."

1 Corinthians 16:14

"Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins."

1 Peter 4:8

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."

1 John 4:7-8

God, life and heaven

If only things were this simplistic. But nevertheless, the idea behind this comic is somewhat true in the Christian context.

Do guys ever really get over their 1st girl...

Read this article "Do guys ever really get over the first girl to break their hearts?" on Elite Daily and felt it had rather good descriptions.

Here's the full article if you desire its full load: http://elitedaily.com/dating/sex/do-guys-ever-really-get-over-the-first-girl-to-break-their-hearts/. But not everything on the article sounds agreeable to.

As for this post on my blog, these few excerpts are strikingly the most pertinent illustrations for me...

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I don’t believe any man ever fully gets over her. Although we know she isn't “the one", and though we know it wouldn't work out even if we tried again, she still remains the fullest memory we have of love; for this reason, she will never be entirely forgotten.

It’s not being the first love that makes the shadow haunt you long after she’s moved out of your life; it’s the love that cuts the deepest, leaving an irreversible scarring. The relationship was very emotional, fluctuating from intense love to intense distaste, to a certain feeling that can only be described as numbing.

Regardless, these girls remain a part of us for the rest of our lives. They are what we base and compare all subsequent relationships to. They are whom we compare a potential new partner to when considering a new relationship. They are the standard that all men live by as far as love and relationships go. The reason this doesn’t change is because the woman we can’t let go of no longer actually exists. Who we remember is not the woman she now is, but rather, a woman she once was.

She is a ghost we keep alive and go back to when things get difficult — the hope for better days that keeps us going.

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Lemme end this post with this tweet by @thegooglefactz that I think is altogether true:

"Psychology says, you never really stop loving someone; you either never did, or you always will."