Hold Me

I love the way you hold me.
As we learned in my institute class this week: "How can one be warm alone?" That wasn't the main focus of the lesson, but I really do feel like that is a basic aspect of human nature. I know that there is a drive to connect, to be close to other people (or at least to someone). In my "Science in society" class, the article I chose for discussion looked at the things that we understand about the chemical oxytocin. Pretty much we figured out in the '70s that it was the main chemical which helped mothers bond with their babies and since then everything we've figured out about it may or may not be true and we don't understand it any more than we did then. The clear thing is, though, that the way body naturally works, it is super important for humans to connect.
When I went back and listened to this song, I realized that I couldn't figure out who Jamie is singing to. There are lines when I feel like it's a love song and she's singing about her boyfriend. With other lines, though, it feels like she's singing about her relationship with God (I did hear it on KLove the night before which is probably why it was in my head when I woke up). As I thought about it, I realized that I am totally ok with that.
I love God. A lot. When I picture my future wife and family, part of what I picture is how much I'm going to love them. There's no doubt in my mind that love is going to be in every part of my family. Even if I started building that love today, though, God would still have a 25 year head start on them. I'm hoping that my future wife is on the same kind of path that I am.
I've seen this triangle several times in various Sunday School and priesthood lessons:

There were dozens of versions of this when I searched for it, but I just loved the images for "husband" and "wife" on this one so much! :)

The basic idea is that there are 360° that a person can move. Odds aren't great that a random guy and a random girl are going to end up moving in such a way that they come together. The way to make this work is to have both of them pick a fixed point and move towards it. There are so many points which it is so easy to fix on (a career, a house, kids, each other, American Idol, a love of cheese, etc.), but those points aren't fixed. They can (and do) move. If you picked a moving point, then you're going to have to be continually adjusting and compensating. I took an entire semester devoted to tracking and adjusting to a changing point in process engineering. Believe you me, it's not fun.
I pick God. I believe that he isn't going anywhere and the only adjusting is going to be when I forget where I was originally headed and start wandering :) In this scenario, I imagine that my wife is going to be working through the same kind of thing, so that is why I'd want her to be focused on God as much (if not more!) than on me.
For me, until I've got my own special someone here to hold on to, I'm going to keep singing, "Lord, I love the way you hold me."