Love
of a Different Kind
The last song speaks of a "hunger in our hearts that only Love can
feed." This is a song about that Love.
i'm always on the lookout for metaphor which expresses God's deep
compassion for us, the compassion which He has demonstrated through Jesus.
No metaphor is complete, as no words can fully capture the immeasurable
degree of His love for the world. But here's another try.
i worked at a Young Life camp with teenagers from around the country
in the summer of '98. You could tell, when they first arrived at camp
and got off of the bus, which boy and which girl either belonged to each
other or would likely fall for each other during that week. There seemed
always the scenario of the tall, dark, muscular handsome fellow, who looked
like the school quarterback, and the very pretty, tan girl with the nice
smile and the perfect figure, who looked like a cheerleader. They would
surely find each other.
It dawned on me that the love about which we wanted them to learn
and which we prayed they'd experience was totally unlike that which is
the merit-based, even if mysterious, affection of the handsome prince
and the beautiful princess.
Christ, the perfect One, chose a bride, not from the beautiful (of
which there were none compared to Himself), but from the 'foolish and
the despised.' Even now, He seeks out and holds up the chalice of His
grace only to the undeserving. He goes farther; He comes to court His
enemies. He bids us to marry Him -- us with the blemished and broken and
selfish and fearful and hellish and woefully imperfect lives. He does
not merely want to save us from our sin and then go His way while we go
our own. His design is to marry us. He does not merely want to join our
meager efforts to liberate the world or cure its social ills. He wants
to marry us and will have us on no other terms. He proposes marriage.
Your answer?
A beautiful princess, and a handsome prince
they look so good together, they make perfect sense
it's a storybook romance, the kind we like to see
this is love, this is love, this is love, the way we're told it should
be
But what if the prince found a poor, ragged girl with a blemished
face
a girl from the ghetto, crippled and bitter, from a different race
if he said i adore you, i will make you mine
we'd say this is love, this is love, this is love of a different kind
this is love from a different place and a different time
This is love from a different heart and a different mind
Beautiful kindness, almost seems bizarre
extravagant blindness seems not to see beyond her scars
He holds up the chalice, she drinks the wine
This is love, this is love, this is love, of a different kind
She looks in the mirror now, without disgrace,
We are the girl, we are the girl with the blemished face
i am the girl, you are that girl with the blemished face.
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