His Eyes I Had Seen

I was 13 years old. Full of anxiety, and deep, deep emotion. I felt for whatever reason, unloved. I was hurting, and yearning. 

I found a book, "The Right Mate" in the church library. I read it, or devoured it really. THIS was what I wanted! I wanted a love like what was described there. I became absolutely obsessed with it, thinking my future Love daily, longing for him, and to be married to him. It was what I wanted most in this world - an intimate and deep love. 

It became my heart's yearning and daily prayer: to have this man come into my life. I prayed as a young teen over and over for him to come. How soon could I feasibly get married, I would wonder? 16? What age? 

I read the Bible and with a prayerful heart of seeking, I felt that God was speaking to me. "John 15:7," came the thought voice. I went there immediately and read the words that I would echo in my mind for years to come. "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you." My heart began to race and my eyes filled with tear as joy grabbed my soul. It was a yes! God had said yes to me! There was a condition that I would abide in Him, something I didn't fully understand, but I was promised then that I would find "the one" as I began to call him. 

The next few years were of me seeking, wherever we went. I would look into the faces of people we met and while no one had ever told me this, I just knew I would know it was him when I saw his eyes. I knew it. And so I waited and I looked. 

In college most of my friends were finding their partners and began coupling. In the beginning I still held hope that my Love was there for me, also. But when I arrived at my senior year still single and pretty lonely having my friends all with their boyfriends and fiances, somehow I began to understand. I would be called to wait. So much work had to be done inside my soul and heart - so much healing I needed to work on. I would be called to wait. 

Many times I would walk forward, and many times there would be times of crying out of the ache in my heart for love. I was designed to love and to be loved, and intimacy is what I craved most of all. Honesty, no walls, and true vulnerable intimacy. Yet although I met many, none of them were the right person and I was not yielding in my wait. I would hold steadfast. 

In my early 20's I went back home to my parents' for a while and there in the tiny bedroom they had set up for me, I prayed again. But this time, I wrote down what I wanted. Simple things that were core that he would love me with all his heart, that he would love God, and also, little things like that he played the guitar. It was there in that prayer time I got for the first time a vision of what his eyes looked like. I had known I would know them, but I didn't know the shape of them specifically. Yet in that bedroom that afternoon, somehow his eyes I had seen. 

Years went by. So much work done inside me, but so much of my life was spent pouring out with a heart that was still broken. Missionary work, service. Growing, leaning on God and pouring out with a broken heart of waiting. I pictured myself as Elizabeth, waiting with a broken heart for the son that still had not come. It just hurt. 

That time I'm so glad for. I learned who I was. I learned to grow in my relationship with God. I grew in loving myself (later), so that I would carry a full cup.

Years later, the vision of his eyes and heart dimmed somewhat. I met a man and I was determined that it would work. It was hard, even from the very first date. But I believed it was right. I won't write much of that now but that marriage brought me two beautiful girls that I know were meant to be here in this life. And they were meant to have their father as their father, and me as their mother. I had bottled up those needs to be deeply and intimately loved, and it didn't seem to matter anymore. 

When the doors of that relationship were closing, the door of my relationship with God reopened. And so did the hope and vision for love. If I were to find love again, it would be the intimate kind. I would not settle for anything less.

"He is coming soon," the lady had said. I felt it, too. The energy had shifted and after my 9 months of weeping daily over a failed marriage, that day in February I was awakened to hear "your time of mourning is over." And it was. It was as if the sun had come out again, and my tears were replaced with laughter with my girls, and joy. 

Just two weeks later. I could feel it! This man! His energy was so close! I had never felt anything like that before. I wasn't thinking of that man I had prayed for as a teen. It was as if I had forgotten about him. The thoughts that came to me now were new, it seemed. 

Then there was that day on the beach on March 9. Running, I saw a man walking with a beard, with ripped and torn jeans. His sunglasses hid his eyes, and as we walked and talked along the beach for two hours that day, I wondered who he would be in my life, assuming he was probably just a new friend. I looked straight ahead as if to give the Universe a look of "what are You doing!!" in wonder. But also, accepting at the mystery of this.

It was days, weeks and months later after I had realized that he had gone deeply into my heart, that we were chatting, and doing nothing of particular noteworthiness, that I saw it.  And I gasped. He had given me a look and I stood silently before the Universe in what felt like a holy place. I had seen those eyes - and they were his. And they were smiling at me. 

And here I am - married to the man from the beach. The man who plays a guitar. The man who loves me with all of his heart. And for weeks now, being busy with work and building a business, we existed but not so closely. And I had questioned myself, and I asked God. Did the past marriage ruin me? I still carry so much hurt from that. This girl who's hunger for love and intimacy - did having to shelve that for so many years - did that ruin me? Am I incapable of love and intimacy like I so wanted as a young girl? Pain is something we learn to cope with and with it, comes pads, and walls. 

"I wish you had been there from the beginning," I had said to him. Would I have then taken him for granted if we had? Perhaps. Would we have dived into emotional intimacy without hinderances? Perhaps. He is always willing, always ready to go deeper. 

Yet it doesn't matter these questions. We are here now, past pains and all. And I am so grateful, for him, and for the opportunity to go deeper into love. 

I call him the man with the beautiful heart. I don't understand the reason for my having seen his eyes. He would freely dismiss such ideas as he does not believe in them. Regardless, what I believe I saw and wanted is what I have been given: a man who looks at me with eyes of love, of cherishing. And I love him. Regardless of the meaning, it was a gift I was given: a gift of a hope of what love could be. And I believe the eyes I had seen were a glimpse of what someone eyes look like when they truly love you. And that is a gift I am so thankful for now, more than ever. <3