P.S. I think I love you

“You have made me, Oh God, to live forever in Your love...my heart is restless, until it finds rest in You.” - St. Augustine

Ok, so up to this point I’ve kinda shared some insights about little things here and there that have to do with modesty. But tonight, as I sat here trying to figure out what to write about this week, I realized that one thing I haven’t shared yet is the biggest reason why I am so passionate about it! So here goes...bring on the fire, this post is gonna get a little more personal.

I am, by nature, an extremely intense person. You can get me pretty fired up about a subject, but I’m also one of those people who refuses to stop just at the tip of the iceberg...I have to go all the way. And in all the different life experiences that I’ve been blessed (and not so blessed) with, I have discovered a very deep and powerful desire to love in an extreme way...so I do! In fact, the basic principle of ethics states that all men desire happiness. The way that I find myself searching for this happiness is in, through, and by loving people.

I have a confession to make. I’ve never had some deep relationship that opened my eyes on how to love another human being with everything I have, exclusively. Actually, in high school, I thought that there was something wrong with me because of that. I thought that the way to discover how to love was by “getting a boyfriend”. And I’m not gonna lie, right after senior year of high school and into the beginning of freshman year of college, I got one...but I found that I couldn’t pour all of my intensity into loving him, it didn’t work. So we broke up, I moped for a little bit, and life went on.

A few months after that, I was reading through some papers from Fr. Shea’s senior religion class, and my eyes focused on a poem written the notes, a beautiful piece from St. Augustine’s Confessions:

Late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new...late have I loved You!

You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for You.

In my unloveliness, I plunged into the lovely things which You created.

You were with me, but I was not with You.

Created things kept me from You; yet if they had not been in You they would have not been at all.

And so You called, You shouted, and You broke through my deafness.

You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness.

You breathed Your fragrance on me...I drew in breath and now I pant for You.

I have tasted You...now I hunger and thirst for more.

You touched me...and I burned for Your peace.

It was in that moment, that I suddenly learned how to love, and Who to love. It’s still something I’ve never actually felt...yah that’s right, I’ve never actually felt that warm, fuzzy feeling that love (or is it really just infatuation?) is supposedly known for, and yet for some reason I know that I love, and I know that I’m crazy enough to do absolutely anything and everything for Him. And you know why? Because I know that I have the capacity to love, and in this capacity to love, is an intense longing to help everyone love the way that I do! Who cares what they think about me, as long as I’m giving of myself entirely in an abandonment to love, nothing and no one can shake me.

So I’m extreme, crazy, and intense in every sense of those words. If you knew some of the things that I do in the name of that intense love I have, it would blow your mind. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime, maybe I won’t. It depends on how I feel about it. But for the record, I’m writing this because I care, because I’m passionate about it, because I LOVE YOU! Enter: Modesty...