on porsche and touch

 "Hold me and love me and touch me again

And show me why I believe."

- Brooke Fraser

"Find me here and speak to me

I need to feel you

I need to hear you."

- Lifehouse

I am a fool for the five love languages. I know they are not a biblical concept as such, but I find them to be so true. They have put words to my need for love, for how I long for it in specific ways. 

Last night God filled my mind with a weird memory. This year my beloved, beautiful, life-long feline friend passed away. Porsche was my best lover. She knew how and when and where to love me. She knew when I wasn't in the mood, she knew when I should be in the mood, she knew when I was desperately in the mood. And she would come and sit with her love, her heavy, furry (often drooling) love, taking up more bed or couch than I did. Her love was persistent and needy; she would not give love without receiving something in return. But there were no expectations, no let-downs, nothing logical, nothing calculated, and best of all, not one inch of awkwardness lay between us. Thus why she was my best lover. 

But she died. And I cried. And now I don't have a lover. 

I have another cat. Wacko is manly, and old, and hilarious, and absolutely lovely. He loves also, but in very, very different ways. I thought about how, depsite the fact that I am extremely fond of Wacko and have had him longer, he never has been quite what Porsche was to me. Then I realized: Wacko is not a lap cat. He will sit near you, he will nuzzle in, he will lay his head or paw on you. But Porsche, she would jump onto my bed, climb over my whole body (without any regard to pain or inconvenience), right up to my face, and sit on my chest. For hours. And she would purr, and dribble and dream, and open her eyes and blink slowly as though she was in heaven itself. 

My love language is physical touch. There is something indescribable about someone I love deeply, without complication or tension, being that near to me. Last night, I realized that I loved Porsche so dearly because she loved me exactly as I needed her too. And because she was a cat, not a human with thoughts and judgments to make, I was able to love her as freely as I pleased.

I've been trying to fall in love with God for months. He has done some things to show me about how to love Him. But I realized last night how strongly I want to touch Him. I get so bored with words. God says beautiful things to me, and I try to let them mean a lot, to let them minister to me in the way He intended, but He knows that I want something else. I want Him to touch me. I want to sit on the beach with God's arm around my shoulder. I want Him to told my hand and brush my hair away. I want lie my head on His chest and hear His heart...

So, I got angry at Him, since that seems to be my response to everything these days. I said, "God! You use all the other four love languages directly, but not the one I need." For Acts of service, He came and died. As Gifts, He gives us Jesus, creation, friends/family, talents, spiritual gifts, blessings. He uses Words of Affirmation through the Bible and by speaking to us directly. And for Quality Time He has torn the curtain and made Himself constantly available, He makes His presence palpable at times, and we could spend all day, every day with Him if we wanted. But the only way that God uses physical touch to express love for us is through other people. And, well, then it has to include the other persons love as well. You can't just go up to a random on the street and say, "please sit with me and hold me for awhile because God wants to love me right now and you have a body".

Thus, longing for a husband commences...