life is more than a dress rehearsal

For my American literature class, we are reading The Color Purple, by Alice Walker.

My heart has never hurt so much while reading a book.  It is literally so painful to me that I have considered simply disregarding the assignment and not finishing it.  But then I think to myself, although it is fiction, is it not a representation of some[one][thing] that could really exist?  This pain is real.  This sin is real.  This injustice is real.  I think of all the girls in sexual slavery.  I think of all the girls that cannot even identify the intimacy their hearts long for.  I want to cry.  I want to lay the book down and never pick it up again.  I want to soak in the prayer room for hours and hours and wash away all the sadness and confusion and depression and oppression…

I cannot handle the color red.  Christ shed His blood.  He encountered sin and absorbed its wounds, His flesh stripped from His body and His face forsaken.  He was “Desolate” because “He delights in her”–the joy of His Bride set before Him. Who could ever accuse God of being a perverted Lover, anything but Love itself?!  He is the very reality of love.  His love is perfect in every way.  Truly, He is worthy because He was slain.  He deals in the color of blood, the color of life, not the purple of death, the bruising of our souls.  He brings life and life abundant!

How can I continue to encounter all this sorrow?  I am accepted in the Beloved.  A partaker of the Divine nature.  My beloved’s: and His desire is for me.