It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I have a good excuse, I promise. I will be picking up a new writing series soon, so stay tuned! For now, here is what I’ve got.
I was asked the other day what it’s like to be in love. I gave them a short version of what I’m going to tell you now.
Being in love is euphoria. It is that elated feeling everytime I see you, hear your voice, and touch you, among countless other ways interacting with you in the slightest way brings that excitement back and makes my heart beat faster.
It makes spending time with you the best part of any day. It makes me work to see you smile, because I love your smile and your favor. But at the same time it makes me weak and unable to concentrate, overwhelmed with the fulfillment you bring. All my thirsts are quenched and concerns silenced in your arms.
It gives me abundant energy to do anything for you. My devotion to you cannot be compromised. I cherish everything about you. I would be completely lost without you. So I do everything I can just to be with you. Being with you sustains me.
I seek your love zealously. I find it in your touch, your smile, your eyes, in your arms, just being in your presence. What becomes familiar is not boring. No, I find new things to love in just who you are. I could love a thousand things to love about you and still seek thousands more to love. I can never go deep enough, the further I go, the more satisfaction you bring.
Hurting you, making you angry, failing you, being separated from you, or seeing your love go from me is unbearable. It brings me to a place of hopelessness, where finding my way back to you becomes my only concern. There is no pain like it and no measure of solace great enough to cure it. You are the only cure.
I would die for you. My desperation for you knows no end. I am jealous for you and protective of you. The entire world couldn’t be of less concern to me when I am with you. You are my hearts one desire.
Intimacy with you is a place of perfection. Where time fades away and you are my entire world. It makes me wish nothing else existed, so I would never be torn from you for any reason.
You are my transcendence. Stay with me forever.
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Indeed, love is powerful. It has captured my heart many times without my consent. The love I described above is a love I have withheld from women for 2 years now that I might be able to love my God like this instead. Because His love is more powerful than the billions of stars He made with a single word, as absolute as death itself, deeper than the abyss of space, and timeless beyond the dimensions within which we live.
Every woman I have ever loved has hurt me, betrayed me, and broke my heart. I have found a love that never fails and I try ever increasingly to give Him what I have given to so many who were undeserving.
Josh Poland 
You appear to have equated the love that God deserves with the love that your companion deserves/needs. I’m unclear on how you arrived at this conclusion. Perhaps there is connection between this and failed past loves.
Posted by Jim Poland | April 8, 2012, 6:00 pmThat has been my journey over the past two years; leaving this thinking behind and trying to understand why I ever thought that. I can only guess at why I came to the conclusion and it may have a lot to do with why my past relationships have failed. My joy in sharing this comes from knowing that I am not the only one who has lived this way and my experience may give them insight into themselves that they may not fall into or stay in the same trap I was in.
Posted by Josh Poland | April 10, 2012, 8:46 pmI love your description of being in love. Oh that we may all approach God with such affection! Thanks for the post.
Posted by Mark Forstrom | April 27, 2012, 1:19 amBeing in love means still standing by someone when it no longer feels like the above. That is infatuation and cannot last forever, it is impossible. Actually being in love is sacrificing for someone, forgiving them when they hurt you, caring about them even when it isn’t a rush anymore, not feeling entitled to their affections just because you want them. Love is sharing a bathroom. Love is hard. The only things worth doing in life are hard. The writing above is just what it feels like when you first start dating someone and it fades.
Posted by Natalie | October 3, 2013, 12:54 amYou’re totally right. The illustration I was making with this post was describing that infatuation, the temporary high that creates the need for more. When I wrote this, I had just realized to what extend I was letting this govern my relationships with women. I thought that the ‘in love’ infatuation was what I needed and I kept going after it.
Upon realizing this, I also realized that my desperation for love and affection was something only a being of infinite love and perfection could meet. So I spent a great deal of time and energy re-evaluating what it is I should be seeking from God and what it really means to love Him as well as what it really means to love a woman.
Edit: also, just to clarify, I call infatuation being ‘in love’ whereas what you described I would call ‘love’.
Posted by Josh Poland | October 3, 2013, 9:24 am