This Is a Love Story. (Lessons from Pericles)

I shared this journal entry in women's Bible study this morning, and was asked to post it to my blog. A little background: I was just in a production of Shakespeare's Pericles put on by The Rude Mechanicals here in Tuscaloosa. Among other things, Pericles is a love story, and I was playing Thaisa, the princess that King Pericles tourneys for and then weds, so I was immersed in that aspect of the play.

Acting in Pericles broke my heart open so much more to the ultimate love story, to God as not just our father, or our brother, or our friend, or all the many things He is to us, but also as our HUSBAND. LOVER. I ache to understand Him in that way more and more.

So, here is the journal entry I mentioned above, which was written during rehearsals for Pericles. Hopefully, getting this out here on the blog will also help me find closure for an experience I am dearly missing.

(I have tried to stay true to the way I wrote the words on the page, including capitalization and arrangement. Also, Katie, I hope it's okay that I used your foot in the photo. I should have gotten a model release form signed from you. Hee hee.)


FRIDAY
6/12/15
10:10pm
After Pericles rehearsal--first off-book line-thru

Spirit like a black crow
ascending over a forest
of emerald, magical
   trees that hug one
   another for warmth or
   to share refreshing coolness.

I stand under their deep,
   complex shade,
   wishing for a lover---
     THE ONE.

Long I stand.
The breeze blows,
   the breeze turns to icy
         chill and stiffens
         my bones
and down I bend in my
      melancholy misery---
loneliness my only comfort,
      the most solitary comfort,
      no comfort at all.

When, out of the silence,
   A NAME
   to shake the earth,
   shake the trees.
He rises, he emerges, he
   pours forth sunlight
   like the rain
And showers me, embraces
   me, fills me with
   THAT NAME.
The name that shakes the
   heavens,
      that demands
      servitude,
                 but asks,
                         invites
                               instead.
The name of mine.
     MY LOVER HAS ARISEN.
See where He stands?
And the gates of hell
    are disintegrating,
    and a kingdom is
             rising
And he takes me, his lover's
           hand, and
we walk into the sunset
that becomes a sunrise
that becomes the most
blinding light my eyes
could ever not stand to
behold.

HE IS HERE.
And I break because of it.
It shatters me,
He shatters me.
My heart He finds on
  the ground first,
and then he breathes on it,
and I am reconstructed,
made different.
   Whole this time.
I dance, and I am not
   out of step.
I sing, and it is wholehearted
   and free-flying,
   my voice on the air.

I open my heart, nakedly,
   and for the first time,
   the very first time,

IT DOES NOT BREAK.

   The king is here,
  my knight in armor white
   IS THE ONE.

and "every knee shall
bow and EVERY tongue
confess that Jesus is Lord,
to the glory of God the
   Father."


In Pericles, Shakespeare
says to me, "Don't forget,
dear sister, we are His
BRIDE. At the end is
a wedding. This [life] is a
love story. And I invite
you to help me tell it---
FOR THIS KING HUSBAND,
the only one who can
receive the full brunt,
the powerful gale of
all our desires, the
fullness of our longings as
humans, because He
Designed
   those longings and
 cast His own image
   within us.
He is tattooed on your
   heart and you on
   His.

You were 
made for
     HIM.

Don't forget that.