“In Rapture” by Franciszek Zmurko (c. 1900), National Museum in Warsaw (Accession No. MP 3946), Source/Author cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/pl/zbiory/453259, (PD)
“Rose Castorini: Listen, Johnny. There’s a question I want to ask. I want you to tell me the truth, if you can. Why do men chase women?
Johnny Cammareri: Well, there’s the Bible story. God. God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. Now, maybe men chase women because they want the rib back. When God took the rib, He left a big hole there, a place where there used to be something. And the women have that. Now maybe, just maybe, a man isn’t complete as a man without a woman.”
—Moonstruck
Many of us enjoy romantic comedies or rom-coms as they are called. Moonstruck happens to be a favorite of mine. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl. And they both live happily ever after.
Trite as many rom-com plots are, they contain a kernel of truth about the importance and the power of love. At some level we all recognize that. It is the reason we find the boy’s pursuit of the girl engaging.
Sadly, as survivors of childhood abuse, we may settle for unresponsive partners or avoid relationships entirely. We may not, therefore, have known the sweetness of courtship. Or perhaps courtship was followed by the horrors of domestic violence.
How much more meaningful then is God’s pursuit of us? That pursuit began in the Garden, when sin first separated man from God.
“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3: 9).
ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse 