Introduction and Welcome

                A woman walked down the street where I stood leaning against a building, she turned my head not for her beauty but for the beauty it seemed she had lost.  Her hair was disheveled, her eyes were sunken, she was wearing rags, and her feet were dirty; extremely dirty.  I peered a little closer and saw that she was crying as she walked along, it appeared that she had been crying for a while because she was still racked with sobs yet there were no tears on her face ( I suppose that she had already cried them).  Her gait was hasty despite her crying.  She approached a door and knocked a couple of times, her knocks were weak, whether from weariness or fear, I could not tell.  I continued to move closer.  She reached to knock again, and the door opened, from where I stood I couldn’t see who opened it.  She shuddered visibly, breathed in, and began to speak.              “I am so sorry, I…You showed me love and I ran from it, you gave me life and I tried to kill it, you held me up and I tried to fall, you asked me to be faithful, I have been faithless”  at this point the sobs almost overwhelmed the words, but she pressed on, “I have sought out the love of other men, I have tried to fill myself up with their lies and have hated you in my heart, I know you can never forgive me but…” she continued to speak, or so it seemed, but I couldn’t hear anything over the sobs.
               I moved so I could see who she was talking to.  A man stood there, obviously the woman’s husband.  To my surprise he was the one crying… gathering himself (I readied myself for the angry outpour) he spoke, (so softly that I had to move closer).
              “Beloved, you’re mine, I forgive you, this changes nothing.  Did you forget this?  All I have is yours, I am yours and I will always be enough for you. You’re mine, you will always be mine, and I will never let you go”.  As he said this he took off the robe he was wearing, put it on her and then gathered her in his embrace.  She could not contain herself, the tears of sorrow and joy ran together as she fell into his loving arms.  She whispered something; (I moved even closer). He smiled and whispered back “I love you too…more than you know”.  He gathered her in his arms and carried her back into their house shutting the door after them. 


              Hello, my name is Jonah Harper.  I am 17 years old and I live with my family in Topeka, Kansas.  I have been homeschooled all my life, and I am a senior in High school.  My dad served in the Air Force for 20 years so I grew up all over the place.  Beyond all of this I am a Christian first and foremost, a lover of Christ and beloved of Christ, and I am a member of Topeka RPC, a part of the Bride of Christ, the Church.  I play the piano and I love singing.  This in a very small nutshell explains who I am. 
               While I will write about myself and the things that are going on in my life on this blog, the main focus of this blog is elsewhere. Allow me to explain.
                Last night I had a dream.  I don’t dream often.  It’s even rarer that I remember anything about the dream in the morning.  The ending of that dream caused me to wake up at 4:47 extremely out of sorts and strangely hopeless.  At 4:45 I was climbing up this mountain, at the top of the mountain was a torch or something else that was giving off a strange light.  In the dream, this climb and the thing at the top was my only hope.  As I reached the top I had this strange feeling that this was the breaking point. The light seemed strangely dimmed by something and then it burst out into its full glory… but rather than fulfilling my hopes it dashed them as it flung me away from it. I was falling…I was screaming, mind you not just from terror, but from the utter despair of having lost my only hope.  4:47
             Now I want to be clear, this was a dream; this was not real life and thus does not necessarily mean anything.  I only tell that story to illustrate something that is at the core of who I am and at the core of what this blog is about.  Hope, and specifically where my hope comes from.  My hope comes from the romance, the undying love of Christ for me.  In the Gospels we see this love of Jesus for His, the church, clearer than ever. 
             All throughout the Gospels we see Christ live a sinless life and at the culmination of the Gospels we see Christ give his life on the cross.  On that cross and even before it Christ was totally alone.  He had lost everything, no, he had given everything.  His father had turned his back on Him and unleashed all of the wrath that was stored up for those Christ died to redeem, his friends fled and his dignity was taken.  Psalm 88 gives us the words of Christ during this time.  V. 14,16 “O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?   Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me.”  Why would he give himself to this plan?  Why in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was on his knees did he not say to God, “I am sorry but I can’t do this.” Why instead did he say, “not my will, but yours, be done”?  He did it because he was consumed with love, for his Father and for his Bride.  In Ephesians 5 when Paul tells husbands what they are to be to their wives he says this; v. 25 “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  Christ lived and died that he might save his Bride. 


                My hope is built on the love of Christ, and the promise that in this life and the next Christ is enough for all my needs, and He is enough to carry me home to be with him. That’s what the short story at the beginning of this post was about.  And that ultimately is what this blog will be about.  As you probably gathered from all of this, I am very much a hopeless romantic.  However, the love of Christ has made me more than that.  It has made me This Hopeful Romantic. 

                                                                      In Christ, Jonah Harper