Slush Muppet!

You can blame the nature of this post on recent conversations on the Ship of Fools, though perhaps it would have been most fitting to wait until Valentine's Day or some other suitably love-linked occassion to post this little reflection.
I am one of those people who delights in a good love story... a happy ending... a fine romance, and all that sloppy palaver. I was chuffed to bits recently to hear that a long-single friend has met someone and got engaged; I can watch chick flicks 'til they come out of my ears (er, if you see what I mean); I get totally caught up in the moment when Marianne* stands on top of the hill spouting Shakespeare in tears, "...love is not love which alters when it alteration finds nor bends with the remover to remove; O no, it is an ever fix-ed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken...". Blimey, that's brilliant stuff! And then there's the Proclaimers and their 500 Miles... how amazing that someone could write those words for another. But the thing is, the point of this ramble, is that I don't think I can remember what it feels like to be on the receiving end of sentiments like that. And so at the same time, I'm also a total cynic!
I'm so grateful that over the years I've come to know God's love, expressed in incomparable depth through the life and death of Christ - I'm not sure how a total slush muppet like me would manage without the knowledge of that love. And that's something I hope for for all my fellow singletons - that depth of love and acceptance that is perfected in God (and reflected in human love) but wouldn't a nice happy ending, Darcy style be cool too!

*Sense and Sensibility in case you were wondering!