Love and Longing (this is a little tale and Kelly and me)

by Doug Floyd

She spoke to me in Algebra II. This was the first time I met her. In fact, it was
the first time I ever set foot in an Algebra II class.

After graduating from college, I didn’t have anything better to do, so I spent a
few months working as a substitute teacher. My undergraduate degree was in English
and Speech Communication. Therefore, it follows that all the classes I substituted
were in Science and Math.

Sitting at the front of an Algebra II class, I called out the teacher’s

assignment. The students started their work and I read my book. A tall, delicate
young lady approached the desk.

“Hi! I think we go to the same church.”

She was right.

Her voice interrupted my safe world. I didn’t date much. At 23 years old, I had
dated maybe a half a dozen girls in my life. I never was a Don Juan with women. I
was more like a Don Knotts. I am a large, awkward person who seems too talk far to
loud at times. She was a delicate, quiet girl.

Enchanted by her hazel green eyes, it felt like the whole planet stopping
spinning. For a brief moment, everything paused and I gazed into the eyes of the
girl I would marry.

I’d never noticed her before. From that moment on, I never missed her. After all,
we went to church together. We both attended a large, emotional church. The pastor
was a young, charismatic black man. In addition to attracting a following among
other blacks, he attracted a large group of white people: white people who wanted
to be black.

We loved the music, the celebration, and the freedom to worship God. On Friday
nights, people from all across the city poured into the old warehouse: blacks,
whites, poor, rich, sinners and saints. And we came to party.

Church meant singing, dancing, crying, laughing and lots of sweaty hugs. The air
weighed heavy with perfume, body odor, hair gel and an expectancy of glory. On any
given night, a wealthy businessman might be sitting beside a convicted drug
dealer; or a grandmother might share her space with a homeless man. This throng of
diverse people formed one happy, yet dysfunctional family. We all shared a common
yearning for something more than routine—a touch of divine life.

She sat toward the front. I sat a few rows behind her, hoping that in the midst of
this worshipping mass, our eyes might connect. I longed to be near her, to talk
with her; and sometimes worked up the nerve to say “Hi!”

She was a princess. A soft glow radiated from her skin. I came to church,
hungering for a touch from God and a glance from Kelly.

Over of the course of the next year, several guys in the church felt God told them
they would marry her. This puzzled me because I though He told me the same thing.
Of course, I didn’t tell anyone. I watched quietly, longing from a distance,
waiting. And she was in my mind day and night.

I never even ask her for a date.

The next autumn, a small group of us began praying together at 6:00 am each
morning. After a few weeks, I began carpooling several folks each morning to
prayer including Kelly and her mom. After a couple of months of intense devotion,
everyone stopped coming to prayer: everyone except for Kelly and myself.

Each morning I picked her up at 5:45 am, drove to church, prayed, and then dropped
her off at school. I lived for the mornings. Gradually, our schedules changed, we
stopped praying together, and the whole morning prayer experiment ceased.

I didn’t see her as often, but her name still beat in my veins. That spring, one
year after I first met her, I felt moved “by the Spirit” to tell her about my
feelings. A week later, by a strange twist of events, I was driving her to church—
alone.

The floodgates opened and I began to tell her how much she meant to me. For the
last year, I had held this secret longing, this deep yearning for love in my
heart. Two hours later, church was over, and we were still talking. As it turns
out, she felt the same way.

As I think back to that time, I have some sense of the depth of longing that God
has for us. The desire and longing I had for her does not even compare with the
depth of longing He has for us. In the purest, highest way possible, He longs for
us. His deep yearning penetrates our own hearts with a longing for love.

We long to love and know love in return. This longing, this yearning is at the
heart of the Easter celebration. For our longing comes from God’s heart. Augustine
suggested that sin is the condition of longing for what we cannot have. We long to
know love, yet our attempts are frustrated and end in failure. Outside of grace,
we simply cannot find the deepest longing in our hearts.

This longing is deeper and purer than human emotion: it is divine love. In Christ,
this love finds completion. As the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our heart, we
realize that the resurrection of Christ makes way for us to enter into loving
communion with the Creator. This love draws into the beauty and delight of Triune
love, and from this love we can finally loves others as Christ has loved us.

Ultimately, the resurrection is all about love. “For the only thing that counts is
faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5:6)

Doug Floyd