The picture above is a custom here in Germany when couples get married. My neighbor and his boyfriend are getting married tomorrow, though the law here would state something along the lines of “being legally recognized as a same sex union”. Since 2001, homosexual couples have had most of the legal rights as heterosexual couples. As of 2009, they have had all the legal rights. The terminology is a bit different but this appeased the Christians here as the word marriage was not used in the law. I think the United States could learn from this.
When I think about love, I think of all the pain and beauty it encompasses. I have loved and lost many times in my life. I had a marriage end that crushed my soul into pieces. It took years to rebuild myself and the right person to trust with my heart. I looked and looked for love. I tried blind dates, fix ups, and even online dating. I did everything I could to rebuild my heart and soul and to learn what love was to me, so that I would recognize it in someone else. The moment I met my husband, I felt a vacuum force pulling me towards him that I had never felt in my life. His heart pulled my heart to his like a magnet. My heart told me, I could love him and trust him with my fragile, bruised heart forever.
Love is so very hard to find, to grow, to trust and build. Who am I to tell anyone that they cannot love the person who fits their heart? What God tells me, my heart and soul, is private. What He tells me is not what He tells others. I have to keep my head down to hear my heart – what it tells me about my life. It is a daily path that I have to take and one I cannot keep if I focus on everyone else’s path. What other people do in their lives, with their hearts and souls are private. It is not my business to stand in their way.
I love the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun”. In this movie, the lead character is a woman trying to rebuild her life after a heart breaking divorce. She finds love in a new house that she renovates, in new friends in Italy, in the birth of a friend’s baby and she finds hope that love will once again find her. Mostly it is a movie about finding love in places we forget to look (like Germany, in my case) J I am lucky, I found my Tuscan sun the day I met my husband. Who am I to stand in the way of someone else finding theirs?
A heart is not gay or straight. A heart loves fiercely and passionately. A heart loves with all its might, power and brightness that it can muster. Giving a heart to another person is so very scary. It does not come easily and it is the most vulnerable place we can be as we hope our hearts will be loved in return. Who am I to stand in the way of other people’s hearts? Who am I to stand in the way of love when it is so very hard to find in the first place? Maybe we should just all get out of everyone else's way.
