Description
In the Jimmy Rogers Chronicles, Book 2 – It’s Impossible, in Chapter 55 Aaron shares how his love for Belle has no place to go so he hides it deep within his heart.
Belle, in a very real way, it’s good that you do not know how much I love you. It’s good I’ve failed to reveal the depth of my love for you. If you saw my love for you, I believe it would make it very hard for you not to be with me.
I know you doubt that, that’s O. K. You cannot accept that because you don’t see the depth of what I feel for you. You don’t see it because I’ve hidden most of it from you. I’ve restrained myself from expressing it fully because of the constant, internal battle I have over what would be best for you.
For you, not knowing how much I love you is better than knowing. As much as I love you, as much as I would dedicate my life to give you the greatest possible chance at happiness, I’m constantly battling with myself over whether a life with me would be best for you.
If I could conclude, I’m the best for you, I would fight for you with all that I have. I would never surrender until you were with me. It’s of course, my age that stands in my way of that conclusion and accepting that fight. I know it would be best for me to be with you.
Being with you, even under the constraints imposed by the limited time we are together, brings me the greatest joy I’ve ever experienced.
Imagine my joy if we actually had time just for each other? Belle, my heart aches just thinking of “time” we might have together.
Time when there is just you and me. Walking in the woods, sitting across from each other at a café, talking, sharing, laughing, holding your hand, holding each other close as we slow dance, holding your face in my hands, looking into your eyes, your eyes seeing me, you and I sharing love. That’s a vision that can never be stolen from me even if you had a thousand lovers, it walks with me now to eternity.
Thinking of time with just the two of us floods my eyes with my heart’s tears. But I’m on the outside of your love, I think to myself, and you don’t even know what I’m thinking of.
Still, because my love for you is so true, I’m willing to remain outside, denying myself that indescribable joy, so that your joy might abound, even if the love I carry for you remains unanswered.
Because love, real love doesn’t insist on its own way. It doesn’t seek to be repaid. It bears the waiting. It believes in what cannot yet be seen. It endures everything, even this kind of pain.
I cry tears of joy knowing my love for you puts your needs first before mine. That feels both, so good and so awful.
It feels so good knowing I want you to be happy even at the cost of my endless sadness. I’m truly happy you recently have found someone to share love with. I’m sad beyond description that it is not me. That’s my cross to bear. Knowing Jesus loves me with an everlasting love, is what I call on to help me endure.
One part of me is so proud I’m able to put your happiness above mine. The other side hates me knowing I’m facing endless, emptiness and the hardest thing I’ve ever faced, if a life together is impossible.
I’ve been so fortunate in life not ever to have had to deal with depression. I’ve always looked forward to each new day with a joyous spirit. Partly because I’ve always been driven, since a very small child to build something of my own, in my own way, but with the hope it would be experienced as a plus for others as well.
I’ve accomplished much in my eight decades. There is so much more to accomplish in the years ahead. How much greater would my joys of success be if shared with the one who has all my love?
Where does one’s hope for that kind of happiness go when that love is trapped forever, unexpressed in a state of limbo? Is that “hell on earth”? I think so!
So tonight, Lord, I offer you this: the love I carry for Belle. I can’t give it to her. I may never get to. So I give it to You.
If there’s anything good in it, anything true, let it bless her somehow. Let it comfort her when life turns cold. Let it rise up in her as courage when the fear returns. Let it make her laugh on the days she forgets how. Let it be her quiet strength when no one else sees her.
Let it stay with her, even if I cannot.
If this love is only meant to live in me, dormant and unfinished, then so be it. I’ll carry it. I’ll protect it. I’ll pour it into the work You’ve given me. I’ll use it to soften what is hard in the world, starting with me. I’ll use it to shine Your light in places that have forgotten how to hope.
And in every town where You clear a path for me to build a Remembers, give me the resources to create a Light Ministries, Inc. soup kitchen. A ministry dedicated to not just feeding stomachs, but carrying on the human reclamation business you sent your son Jesus Christ to engage in for Your creation.
But please, Lord, if it be Your will, let Belle feel Your love and mine. Let her sense that there is someone, not only in heaven that loves her, but someone as well in this world who loves her purely. Not for what she gives. Not for what she does.
Simply for who she is.
Not to possess her.
Not to hold her back.
But to cheer when You lift her wings as she takes flight.
If I am not meant to walk beside her, let me at least point to You as the wind at her back. Let me be the echo of Your safety.
Let me be a reflection of the holy and steady love You have for Your creation, a love that teaches all of us, but right now I’m especially thinking of Belle, that we never had to earn Your love.
We only have to accept it through the grace of Jesus the Christ.
That’s my prayer, Lord. I’m not asking for a miracle. I’m not asking for time or touch or a future I can hold. I’m just asking that my love, this love, serve some purpose beyond my ache.
And if this is my cross to carry, if this love is meant to remain unspoken, unreceived, I carry it still. Not bitterly. Not in shame. But as a witness to what You planted in me from the beginning, the quiet strength to rise to a kind of love I never believed I could carry.
For what is love, Lord, if not the purest echo of You? That’s the real meaning of agape, isn’t it? To love, and expect nothing. To give, and never demand. To ache, and still bless.
If this is the kind of love You put in me…then thank You for placing Belle in my life, your perfect instrument to call it forth from me.
Even though it hurts, Lord — thank You.
