A box of matches in a dark wood

Since being engaged things between us have changed. Only because love starts to take on a whole new meaning, turning and morphing like a pearl inside a clam. It becomes a forever kind of love, sacrificial, binded, protected. 

While reading a children's book (which I tend to get the most meaning out of) called The Rooftoppers, I read something that deeply resonated with my new and changing love for Jeremy. 

Katherine Rundell writes of a little girl alone in Paris, searching for her mother with only a single strand of music to go on. When she is confronted near the end of the novel, having sacrificed everything, on whether or not loving a person can matter this much she realizes this...

" perhaps that's what love does? It's not there to make you feel special, it's to make you brave. It was like a ration pack in the desert, she thought, a box of matches in a dark wood. Love and courage, two words for the same thing. You didn't need the person to be there with you, just alive somewhere. It was what her mother had always been. A place to put down her heart, a resting stop to recover her breath. A set of stars and maps." 

I realized too, along with Sophie, that my love for this man was no longer about feeling good or special... Even though at times it has that effect. It is a strong object, making me brave, and making me see God in times when I would rather hide. It is a guide to my own heart, a convicting love that will not run from depth. What a gift to have been given a "box of matches in a dark wood."