Love Worth Dying For

This love has found me, and it’s gonna be forever…

You’ll never think that love was real the moment you are captivated by it. You got to believe it was real because you can see it, because you can feel it, because you just knew deep inside you that if this isn’t real, then what is?

I was already disillusioned that love for me was just a romantic notion of an idealized fairy-tale; that love is nothing but hyper-reality and that romantic feelings are nothing more than that: ‘feelings’.

I’ve already become so accustomed to solitariness and silence ever since my first attempt at a relationship failed and came crashing on me like tumbling flood—it left me devastated at the least. And that is just an underestimation. When you give your all for the sake of love, you’re giving a big part of yourself to that person who came to compliment your existence. And when that person—your all, your reality and dream, your center, your meaning—leaves without promising to return, you feel so isolated, you feel so denied of the right to be happy. You feel so broken that the next thing you want was to end it all and vanish. Just like that.

But then I came through, like all people do. I moved on, like we always do.

I lived.

Coming from that experience, I willed to myself to avoid the call of romantic love for the meantime and focus on more necessary matters in my life that call for my attention; and also to get rid of unnecessary entanglements which have become my worst battles. I almost succeeded in doing that, and I was very proud of myself. I was slowly taking progress. Getting over a painful experience was really hard, but it was possible. It was necessary.

And so I was on my way to thinking that love is just a Hollywood construct or a cheap fairytale. I was ready to dismiss it as a myth that has been told to generations so that people can make sense of their world in the absence of concrete and more acceptable explanations. I’ve grown skeptical about its meaning and its end, and the more I refer to my past experience the more I strongly feel that it is not really necessary to one’s existence.

Or at least mine. Read: Bitter. Haha.

But then, whoever said that corny, shallow, insensible, exaggerated, hyper-reality quote “love moves in mysterious ways” maybe right, and I agree. I didn’t imagine that love is indeed a force that will make or break you, or a magic that puts you under spell. I wasn’t prepared for that magic this time inasmuch as I’m still not prepared to be swept away again.

But then, there is no telling what love can do when it comes. There is nothing one can do to rationalize love because love is not just an intellectual pursuit, nor a state of emotional hyper-delusion, but something that gives you clarity of vision and purpose. I realized then, it is not something to be found, but it is something that finds you.

And so, right before my eyes—in the most unnatural ways, in the most unexpected time, in the most unexpected place—it came all of a sudden. Wave after crashing wave. It swept me away. Without hows or whys or what ifs. Or any hint of reservation.

Just when I thought that my story could not get any better, you came. And I fell in love with you as clear as the bright sky and as imminent as the break of dawn. I still burst with gladness.

It has, indeed, found me. 

And the world since then was filled with wonder.

But I am writing this now not to tell of a personal story (really?). Although mine and yours are stories which will always be interconnected in some ways by some invisible threads which hold life and destiny together. Like my days and years and my name are inscribed in the palms of your hands.

I am writing this for you—to you who taught me about wonders and miracles. To you who taught me to tell others of their miracles and believe it with all their hearts. And that they can have their miracles, too. And in everyday because of this great love, we are not consumed; every moment is a spectacle of miracles unfolding each day.

I am writing this to let people know about this great and incomparable love that has searched out the lost and has filled the empty. That true love means giving your life for a friend, in total abandon. And so that they may know that true love is possible and that forever is real because you already found a way. All that’s because what is impossible with men you have made possible.

I wouldn’t stop writing and I mustn’t cease talking about you like David—that fearless warrior from long time ago, that giant slayer—when he said “my tongue is the pen of a ready writer” all for the love of his life, his king.

Because you have become the epitome of perfect, unconditional love. A love so profound and so eloquent that it resonates from here to infinity. A love that has filled the great divide between the temporal and the eternal. A love that has broken the chains for those wanting to break free.

I couldn’t believe in destiny within the bounds of human imagination but you’ve totally proven that you hold it altogether in your hands, and the things that happen are all part of that grand and romantic story you’ve written even before the ancient of days has begun.

And so I give no less than my whole heart for the sake of this love. I give no less than my life and my loyalty and my utmost devotion to love you with all my strength. And if my strength would not be enough, my heart and soul will persist to reach out to and seek you first of all. And to let this love fill me up to overflow so that it will spill out and reach to others in limitless streams of grace.

I know that loving you would require sacrifices—to turn my back to so many things in this world, to leave behind ambitions that I have for myself, to get rid of my claims and my crowns—but what else is there to do? Loving you is all-consuming. To turn my back to this is recklessness and foolishness.

Which led me to this place two summer seasons ago: there on the beach one fine morning as we huddled in the sand to seek for your presence. I remember clearly that break of dawn, as the sun rises over the mountain and the dark skies turn amber. Like consuming fire. It was there that you asked for my heart. Every broken piece. All of it. “Give me your heart”, you said. 

But I wasn’t ready. Or I don’t want to. I was tearing apart from the inside and was ready to run away from you again, but you were stubborn. I know I've been so cold with you for as long as I can remember; even though I would always claim that I am yours. But you were persistent. I’ve been running away all this time but you never got tired of chasing after me. Ang kulit ba.

So when you backed me up in a corner, and asked me again in a gentle but persistent manner, “My son, give me your heart…”, I laid down my defenses and my pride and came to you like a cry-baby. My life, my self-worth, and my entire person slowly vanished away in light of eternity.

That was a black Saturday on a Lenten season. And I just died to myself.

“So what could I say?
And what could I do?
But offer this heart, Oh God
Completely to you

I'll stand
With arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the one who gave it all
I'll stand
My soul Lord to you surrendered
All I am is yours”

So at the end of it all is this question: is this love worth giving yourself up to? The answer is yes. This love is even worth giving your life up for.