Love in poetry.

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver, Late Fragment

Love in poetry.

My favorite Jesus moments are the times when he speaks to me through the unexpected. I watched a movie, Stuck in Love, on Netflix the other day. Though the content of the movie was dark and depressing, I was moved by a speech the protagonist delivered in the film. He quoted a poet, Raymond Carver:

I could hear my heart beating.

 I could hear everyone's heart. 

I could hear the human noise we sat there making,

 not one of us moving,

 not even when the room went dark.

This prose inspired me to uncover more poetry by Raymond Carver. His language sparked an eagerness to keep reading. Each piece I read encouraged me to read more. I feverishly hunted and happily devoured his poetry. He wrote of love and loss - subjects I greet with familiarity as a hopeless romantic.

In those moments of complete abandon in Carver's poetry, Jesus met me. I read Carver's Last Fragment and was reminded of my beloved, my Jesus. When I read this short poem (excerpt above), I was reminded of two distinct moments in the Bible. The first was Song of Solomon 6:3: I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine [...]. The second was Matthew 25, where Jesus depicts the final judgment through parables.

I could picture my Beloved, my Jesus, asking me, "And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?" I could picture myself replying, "Yes. I did, because I was my Beloved's and my Beloved was mine." It's crazy to me how Jesus transported me into Carver's poem to speak his love and purpose into my life.

I mean...that's all that life is about. It's about Jesus being your Beloved and you being his beloved. It's about being caught up in love with him - the kind of love that inspires poetry. Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37). And since that is the greatest commandment, it describes the substance of life - to love God wholeheartedly.

Though the essence of this blog post is nothing new under the sun, I pray that it reminds you of your first love. I pray that it spurs you to fall head over heels in love with Jesus. To expect him in the unexpected. To know him as your Beloved and to be called Beloved by him. I can't wait to hear his voice as he calls me Beloved in Heaven. I know I will just melt in his arms and be swept away by his poetry.

His master said to him,

‘Well done, good and faithful servant.

 You have been faithful over a little;

 I will set you over much.

 Enter into the joy of your master.’

Matthew 25:21