In love with.. a madman.
a woman marries a madman.
a king, actually. Betrothed — she had met him only 5 minutes before their wedding and they were to spend a lifetime together, yet began as complete strangers. She actually falls quite hard for him, though he had his peculiarities and seemed he preferred isolation to her company. This was a strong woman, she wasn’t one to comply. she wasn’t one to simply sit back in a marriage that felt loveless.
Her pursuit of him deep down is what he had always longed for, he actually aches for her, he loved her from the moment he saw her… but she has no knowledge of his condition, she knows nothing about his spells of madness that the palace has done everything to keep secret. Until one evening when he became consumed by one of his manic episodes and she saw what had been hidden all along, piecing together his behavior and his isolation and how he has tried so hard to hide himself from her that this.. This was what he had been trying to protect her from, not that he wasn’t in love with her.
When he came out of it the next day, realizing that she had seen him as he was, he couldn’t handle it. He wanted nothing but to be “fixed,” to be “right,” to protect her from himself. Quickly he threw himself into the hands of a cruel doctor putting him through weeks of horrific treatments to try and “fix” this madness. Alas, the queen soon becomes fed up with his absence and their hiding of him and she storms in to save him, rescuing him from his own pursuits of trying to attain perfection to be found lovable.
The rest of the show reveals a queen who has chosen love even in the midst of great difficulty and pain. She saw a man who was not mad but deeply broken — abused as a child, carrying far too great a weight of expectation on his shoulders, only shown love at his performance and only seen as a body that must fit a role, he had no understanding of what it looked like to be unconditionally loved no matter what flaw or failure may plague him.
— This show was so profound for me to watch, I cried a lot watching this man struggle within himself, you could see the way just being in his own body and brain was a prison. he wanted so desperately to get out of himself and be someone else and yet he couldn’t, and the entry of a woman who loved him despite it, who spoke truth over him, who saw him as he was apart from his condition, who loved him without fear or uncertainty or expectation — this. this was his “treatment.” This was what regulated him. This was what brought him back to reality. She was rewriting the narrative he always knew that plagued his every living breath.
This is the power of love. This is the love that we all deeply crave. This is the love that sees the darkest corners of a person and instead of leaving, withdrawing, shaming — pursues, loves, and moves toward. she wasn’t burdened by him, either. She said his pain was her pain, his weight was her weight, the woes they had, they’d bear together. She didn’t see him as a burden, she didn’t make him out to be the bane of her existence though she could’ve. She could’ve seen him as a madman, but she chose not to. She chose to have empathy for him instead of feel sorry for herself.
This marks me, because I felt I could relate in a lot of ways to the madman. I came into my relationship with sam riddled with mental health issues, struggling deeply and always at war with my own mind. I spent years trying for years to hide it from him, to keep him from seeing how bad it could really get — I had little concept of being seen as I was and not either being labeled for it or abandoned because of it. There was a season I distinctly remember when it became impossible to hide… I knew it concerned him, maybe even scared him a bit, but I couldn’t see that in his eyes when he looked at me with resolute confidence that I was not the thoughts in my head. I was not the sadness I felt. I was not unlovable. He would look me in the eyes and tell me that he wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what it looked like, no matter how I struggled — that he loved me, he loves me, and he will always love me, and that will not change no matter the hell or high water that comes at us or that goes on inside me… His love changed me. It began to birth something new inside me. Time and time again he showed up the same, never wavering in his love for me but only letting my flaws and struggles make it stronger, telling me the truth of how God created me and who He made me to be… and over time things began to heal. He saw me through the eyes of God and told me my identity in Christ that may not have been showing itself, but was what God designed deep within me. I was loved not for what I did, not for how I performed, not for how lovable I could be — but I was loved as I was, fully, completely, even the dark corners, because even dark corners are redeemed by God.
God used this. He used sam to show me, in real time, the love that He has toward me. However, as much as the love sam has for me has transformed so many things in me, it is not perfect love, or a love I can wholly depend on, but God’s love is. He is consistent, steady, steadfast, He does not change, He is not offended, He is slow to speak and quick to listen, it is the Agape love of God that we get to receive and live in each and every day — the ultimate love story. The ultimate pursuit. And the best part is, it’s not for the lucky girl or guy who finds the perfect match — it’s for all of us, in equal measure, overflowing.
“agape is an act of the will, "an intentional, purposeful attitude of esteem and devotion; a selfless, purposeful, outgoing attitude that desires to do good to the one loved.“ In other words, agape does not merely feel; it acts. No longer can we parse our fellow humans into the categories of "lovable" and "unlovable." If love is an act of the will-not motivated by need, not measuring worth, not requiring reciprocity--then there is no such category as ‘unlovable.’ — Jen W.
We are all the madman.
… and no amount of self help or fixing could repair our state of sin. We are all the ones utterly broken and in need of a savior, the ones who have not done anything to be loved but actually have done everything worthy and deserving of death. Yet, our perfect King left heaven to come to earth to live 33 years with the knowledge that His life would be given entirely as a sacrifice so that He could be one with you, save you from eternal death, give you HIS righteousness and pure character, His love and so His power and presence could dwell with you as one, all your days. You didn’t do anything to deserve it, rather you did the opposite. But love covers a multitude of sins, and Jesus, the very love of God, covered not only all of your sins, but the sins of the entire world. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And for those who put their faith in and believe in Him, they have received this eternal, unconditional agape love to enjoy and relish in for the rest of their lives. If you are in Christ, then you are the recipient of the most remarkable, selfless, devoted, and incredible love story this world has ever seen.
