Chick Flicks - by Stacy Yoakum

Stacy is a dear friend, and fellow missionary here in Lima, Peru.  She is a great listener and one of those friends who I like to thrash out new ideas and revelations with, as well as marriage ups and downs, babies, our boys and lastest Peruvian hilarities.  She has a beautiful heart and I am thrilled to share this beautiful post about God has used her marriage relationship (and Chick flicks!) to reveal more of the heart of God: 

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Yes, it’s true.  I can almost always go for a good Chick flick.  What is it about these movies that draw us to them? Love, romance, relationship.  Words that either make you sigh and bat your eyelashes, or sigh and make you crinkle up your nose.

To me, this is one way a good chick flick can go:  Boy likes girl.  Girl rejects boy. Eventually girl decides to befriend boy.  Despite her rejections and hardness of heart, the boy accepts the girl as she is, and he enjoys her company.  He decides she is worth pursuing even if she does put up a fight.  He believes in her, values her, adores her.  All the while she is blind to this, because it is too hard for her to accept him for who he is, and also too hard for her to accept that she is who he sees her to be.  She fights against his love for her and against the love she feels for him.  

But the boy is patient, kind, forgiving.  He is up for the challenge and continues to give her undeserving grace, because he can’t deny his heart.  She is worth fighting for.  But enduring another rejection, he has to let her go.  He knows she has to decide on her own that she is who he saw her to be all along.  He knows that she has to believe on her own that he is the one she loves and the one that she is meant to love forever.  When the veil is finally lifted from her heart, she goes to him and makes herself vulnerable like he had been with her all along.  He could say many things in response to her, but he says the truth he can’t deny… “I love you.  I never stopped loving you.”

Roll the credits.  I take a great sigh, my heart wells up with emotion and I imagine how they live happily ever after.

But why do I love Chickflicks so much? I realised that really it is because it is the reality of how God pursues a love relationship with mankind!  Girls, next time your man rolls his eyes at the mention of you wanting to go see another chick-flick, just reassure him that it’s the Godly thing to do!

Just kidding.  Sort of.

No, really, though.  The other reason why this particular chick-flick stuck with me is because it was all too familiar.  You can substitute “boy” in that movie description above with “Wes,” and “girl” with “Stacy.”  Wes and I have been married for 10 years now.  But do you want to know what my famous quote was more than ten years ago?  It went like this:  During mine and Wes’ friendship, which was after our 9 month break-up from our 2 months of dating, and two weeks before we starting courting again, I told him there would be a zero percent chance that he and I would get back together. 

“Zero. Zero percent chance,” I said.  You know what he said? 

“That can’t be true.” 

I was so mad he didn’t believe me.  (And then two weeks later I was really glad.) 

Whoever said being in a committed relationship was easy?  If you have been told that, then you have been straight-up lied to.  Relationships are hard.  Marriage is hard.  Happily ever after doesn’t mean perfectly easy.  It means that even when times are tough you hold on tight to the promise that God will see you through that fire.  And then you rejoice together, because you endured the flames and came out stronger, together.  Closer, with a greater dependence on your Lord.

Since the day I realized that Wes was going to love God more than he’d ever love me and therefore decided to say, “Yes,” to that boy who stole my heart, I have been blessed with a picture, in the flesh, of what my relationship with God is like.  What it was like.  What it is supposed to be like.  What it can be like.  What it will be like with time.  Whoever said being in a committed relationship with God was easy?  If you have been told that, then you have been straight-up lied to.

But maybe there is something you haven’t been told.  Here it what God says to you,

“Coming close to Me requires no great effort on your part; it is more like ceasing to resist the magnetic pull of My Love.  Open yourself to My loving Presence, so that I may fill you with My fullness.  I want you to experience how wide and long and high and deep is My Love for you, so that you can know My Love that surpasses knowledge.  This vast ocean of Love cannot be measured or explained, but it can be experienced.” (From Sarah Young's Jesus Calling.) 

It’s true.  It can be experienced.  God desires intimacy with us.  A kind of intimacy that is even greater and stronger than the kind of intimacy between husband and wife.  It can’t be explained.  But it can be experienced.  And you don’t even need a spouse to experience it! 

Have you realized the Love of your life can never love you more than He does right now? 

Thank you, my Lord, and my God for pursing me even when I fight against the magnetic pull of Your love.  Thank you for not giving up on me.  And thank you, sweet Lord, for my husband, Wes.  I don’t deserve him, as I don’t deserve You.  

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Stacy lives with her husband Wes, and her two sons Jakob and Derek in Lima, Peru. They are part of a team of missionaries and leaders of Aliento de Vida (Breath of Life) Church. Check out their website here.