by Jennifer Martin

Love is temporary madness. This is the initial feeling, this is the first crazed thought where you begin to think, "I will spend the rest of my life with this person…!!!" And there just aren't enough exclamation points to demonstrate your excitement. The crazy movie stereotypes bubble to your mind and you listen to every single love song with a new perspective than you ever had before.

Oh, maybe you've been in relationships before, but this one is different. It's more different than anything anyone has ever experienced before.

Your relationship is unique. No one else could ever feel this way about another human being. Ever. No one has ever felt this way before, period. On top of your highly original, never-before-felt intense feelings - you're reading Song of Solomon and starting to think that maybe God doesn't care so much about "True Love Waits" after all. After all, this is what "true love" is.

You drive yourself to an obsessive state of mind, worrying about everything. Will my significant other like it if I wear this? Hang out with this person? Bring up this subject of conversation? The thought of your significant other completely and totally consumes your every action and reaction. Your brain is simply incapable of keeping up with your heart! The sight of him or her brings your soul to its knees and you just don't even know where to start.

Where this perfect person came from, you have no idea, but you will hold on to him or her for the rest of your life, for every waking moment.

Then, one day, reality sets in. You're stunned! Your precious, perfect darling did something crazy. Maybe they farted in front of you. Maybe you caught them checking out a rather picturesque member of the opposite sex. Maybe they forgot your birthday. Maybe you found out they had a secret, dirty habit that you don't approve of - like cigarette smoking. Their horrible sin has forever hurt and destroyed the flawless portrait of your relationship, and you don't know where to go, or what to do.

This defining moment is what makes or breaks a relationship. You can learn to accept someone as imperfect, without the frills and thrills of sexually charged "love." Or you can move on, pout about how horribly you were led on, swear off the opposite sex forever, and go back to reading the numerous Bible verses about adultery.

When you accept someone's imperfections, however, you can begin to see your own.

You can see how we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, and sometimes God can show you things about yourself through another person.

When the roots of you and your significant other grow together, you may find that you are only one tree and not two. When all the pretty blossoms fall off the tree, and the wild feelings of being "in love" have fallen away, you still have roots that are solid to the ground. And that is what love really is, after all.


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