“Louisa Jarmon. July 29th, 1854 to April 19, 1914. ‘She faltered by the wayside and the angels took her home’”. These were the words that stared back at me as I stood before a gravestone in the damp Texas heat. I had never met Louise Jarmon, but I couldn’t help wonder who she was and what she did with her life. Did anyone remember her? Did she do anything worth remembering? Will this be me someday?—just another forgotten pile of bones, lucky if someone took the time to memorize my gravestone. Along with these questions came an insatiable curiosity to know her life story.  I wondered if she knew God, or had kids, or ever experienced love. Seeing Louisa’s gravestone made me realize the reality of my unavoidable death, and it triggered a change within me. I will die some day, and the last thing I want is to stand before God at the pearly gates, shuffling my feet and having nothing significant to say when He asks me what I did with my life. We all tend to focus on trivial things in life, but nobody will care about, much less remember, those things when we’re gone. As Donald Miller, in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years says, “The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.” As I pondered this, I came to a realization that eventually gave my life meaning: we are all in the midst of the greatest love story ever told.

Let’s begin by concentrating on the importance of stories. It is safe to say that we all enjoy stories. Whether we realize it or not, we live stories on a daily basis. As author of the book Epic, John Eldredge, says, “Life doesn’t come to us like a math problem. It comes to us the way that a story does, scene by scene. You wake up. What will happen next? You don’t get to know—you have to enter in, take the journey as it comes”. For instance, earlier this winter I accidentally knocked over a jar that was sitting on the kitchen windowsill, and the first thing I hear is my mom’s surprised cry: “What happened?”. Or how about when you find a friend crying in the bathroom, or when an ambulance is stopped on the side of the road? The question is always the same: what happened? In other words, “Tell me the story”. Tell me how you came to be crying or vacuuming up glass shards or laying in a stretcher. We rely on stories more often than we realize. The media is another example. Take the daily news, movies, and books. I’ll admit that I have spent more than a couple Friday nights curled up in bed with a book or watching movies. The simple fact is we crave those good stories that saturate our culture. So, if each of our lives is a story, my story will be different than yours, or Louisa Jarmon’s—right?

Let me tell you a story so I can hopefully answer this question. It starts with a man named Michael and a prostitute named Angel. Michael was a hard worker and a strong and faithful Christian. Every day he worked to keep his farm in proper order, and every night he was by the fire with his Bible. He never once stepped foot in a brothel, but one day on a trip to town after seeing Angel walking in the street, his heart went out to her. He loved Angel, not for her body or her appearance and definitely not for her profession, but he felt it was his job to teach her the true meaning of love. So he took all the money he had earned in a year, and bought a time slot with Angel. He didn’t lay a hand on her; he talked to her and tried to convince her to marry him. Angel refused, but Michael just scooped her up and took her home. She was defensive and stubborn and fought against him the whole way, but he was persistent. Finally, Angel resolved to try to fit in to farm life, but it soon became too much. Cooking and cleaning weren’t exactly in her skill set; so she snuck away in the night and went back to the only life she knew. The next week, there was Michael in the brothel, carrying her out and bringing her back to his farm. He loved her, and he was not about to let her slip out of his grasp. He wanted to convince her of his love for her despite her soiled past and disbelief that she could be loved. And so it went: he brought her back and once again offered her a family, protection, food, and true and pure love, yet she continued to run away until at last, Michael let her leave. He never stopped loving her, but he needed to let her have the freedom to choose. After three years away from Michael and away from prostitution, Angel returned to him, finally able to understand love and forgive herself for her past. Michael’s love got to her, and it penetrated her, unable to be hidden or denied.

This story is from a book called “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers. Some might listen to this story and swoon at the persistent and gentle love of Michael. I did. I finished the book and longed for a man like Michael in my life and for a love like this to happen to me. It is this love story that we have all been dreaming about since we were children. In his book Shyness & Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment, Dr. Brian Gilmartin says “Among the first signs of “falling in love” is a giddy high similar to what might be obtained as a result of an amphetamine boost.” Dr. Gilmartin goes on to say that age has little to do with this amphetamine ‘high’ and states, “The biochemical basis of love is really no different for the eight year old than it is for the adult.”. This explains some of our childhood tendencies. My little sister and I, and occasionally my brother used to play dress up. He was the knight in shining armor and we were the royalty in the Disney princess outfits. Or he would be a groom and we would dress up as the bride or flower girl. Whatever the imaginary situation, the desire to be loved and saved by a hero was written on our hearts at that young of an age and reflected in these games we played. But these desires are by no means only for children, we still have the same longing. My sister can attest to the fact that I watch Pride and Prejudice far too often. I still have this longing for my own Mr. Darcy or Eugene Fitzherbert, but it took awhile for me to realize that… I do.  I do have a hero, and a man who loves me more than life itself, but this man is not Mr. Darcy or Prince Charming. The story of Michael and Angel is actually a true story but the fact that it comes from a book is not what makes it true. It is true, because this story is our shared reality.

This man is God and He has been pursuing each and every one of us our whole lives. That story about Michael and Angel is a play off of the book of Hosea in the Bible. Michael is like God and we are the prostitute; laden with sin and filth, but loved unconditionally by a man who will stop at nothing to convince us of this love. Look at our relationship with God across time. In the Old Testament, God’s relationship with us was distant—mostly through signs or visions. A pillar of fire, a burning bush, prophets, dreams. Then in the New Testament, God’s relationship with us was face to face through Jesus Christ. The distant gap closed; God became more personal with us. We could touch, see, and talk to him. We ate at the same table and drank from the same cup. Then finally, after Christ’s ascension, our relationship became even closer. At Pentecost, God entered into us, into our souls as the Holy Spirit. You see, there has been a progression over time of our distance and relationship with Christ. He is pursuing us, constantly seeking to get closer, even enduring death so we could keep our relationship with Him forever. Is this not the greatest love story ever told? Is this not exactly the story that we’ve been longing for our whole lives?—for a lover to pursue us. In reality, the love that Michael showed for Angel, is no different than the love that God shows us.

It’s important to know what I mean by God’s love. So many of us think of it as boring, G rated, and churchy; but that is not the case. God is the author of the greatest love story ever told. There is nothing dull about that; God is passionate, and a romantic at heart. All modern love stories are really God’s story with different masks. This is why all stories seem so similar; not to mention why there have been so many remakes of the same movie.

Think back to your favorite books or movies. The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars; or perhaps Titanic or Les Miserables. They all have the same structure. Even movies such as Despicable Me or Finding Nemo–movies that don’t come off as grand or epic—have similar story lines. That is because God’s story is interwoven in to each of these modern accounts. Here’s how:

First, every great book or movie has a “once upon a time”. God’s story is similar, and it begins with a relationship between the Word and God. God extends that relationship to us. As Father Jean C. J. d’Elbee says in his book I Believe in Love, “[God] did not create us out of necessity; He did not need us. He did not create us out of justice; He owed us nothing. No, it is to His sheer love that we owe our existence.”. From the very beginning God’s intent for a relationship with us was one of love.

Furthermore, there is evil or suffering to pave the way for the hero. Caroline Bingley, Darth Vader, the evil stepmother, Frodo’s ring; whatever it may be, every great story has an evil. God’s story also contains an evil that begins with the fall of the angel Lucifer. Ezekiel 28 verse 12 and 13 says: “You were in Eden, the garden of God…Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God…”. Notice that evil did not triumph; instead, it prompted powerful love. Jack showed love as he gave up a spot on the debris in the icy water to save Rose and Aslan sacrificed himself in place of Edmund to satisfy the White Witch; so too God sent his son to die for us on the cross to save us from death. This was the first love story; the ultimate love story.

The force driving these stories, especially God’s, is love. This concept has saturated our media, yet some still do not realize that God is waiting to satisfy our hearts by engaging us in His story. This leaves us with a choice and depending on that choice, a purpose. The choice is to say yes to God’s passionate pursuit of us, or to reject it. We were created out of love, to be loved, and to love. This is the meaning that I found within the love story that God showed me.

It will not be easy. It will require character and great battles. But if we truly long for this love story, as our culture suggests, then we will continually pursue it. Looking at the gravestone made me long for meaning in my life, so I will not have to look back and say that I wasted it. I finally discovered my love story, and to fulfill my role in that story gives my life purpose. So I ask you to consider the same question that I faced as I looked at that gravestone. Will you talk with God for days, or will you stand before him, shuffling your feet? Do you have the courage to enter into the story?