The Best Love Story to Remember

Last month, I posted a video and a few words entitled "A Love Story You'll Never Forget"- it was a truly moving story. One reader, my writing-major-roommate-to-be, was so touched by the young couple that she wrote a beautiful reflection on what she had just witnessed. Tabitha is a gifted writer and was good enough to share this reflection with me and in turn allow me to share it with you.

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Once Upon a Time...

Two very special people decided to love each other,

And when they decided to love each other,

Together with Christ, they were able to write this beautiful story.

~Lynley Turkelson

I just watched the movie of Ian and Larissa on YouTube - John Piper tweeted it and I’ve seen it
come up a couple other times, and have been wanting to watch it but haven’t until this quiet, overcast Tuesday morning. It brought me almost to tears. The love of Larissa for her husband who no longer looks attractive and can barely speak (certainly not with a clear, handsome voice) is so touching. Gentleness and peace and satisfaction run throughout her words and her demeanor.


My initial, natural response is “how sad!” The sympathy God planted in every human heart, which I believe He is growing in my heart, naturally flourishes and becomes sensitive in such a situation. And yet, don’t I see that this is not an event to spend energy feeling bad for this couple? Not an event to consistently bemoan and to practice sympathy on? The world - I -  say this is tragic. But not so with God. As was so clear in the video, this is something beautiful. Because of God. Yes, Ian’s accident is clearly a very hard, forever life-changing event, an event which carries many legitimate sorrows and longings and losses with it. But with God, not only can those losses fade from being the focal point, but they can become the celebration, as much as what we commonly see as celebrate-able and beautiful. This is clearly seen applied in Ian and Larissa’s life as a married couple and in their home with the “wall of gratefulness” they periodically post with sticky notes. Ian almost always writes down “my wifey” as what he is thankful for, as
Larissa tells us.


I’ve never rejoiced in something tragic. I wouldn’t know about it, I couldn’t explain it. I have no
experience, no authority to make my words meaningful in the full sense. I haven’t been through it. Which is what is so amazing about Larissa, in particular (as I see it right now). She is so God-like as I saw her in the video in her handling of this situation. How great is God’s work in her life, how much has she allowed Him to work miracles and God-likeness in her heart! - through much struggle and oft accompanied by failing and slipping into sin, I’m sure, like any unfinished child of God.


With God, ugly is not ugly, it is beautiful, if submitted to Him. He can use anything! Who cares
about all the crap you’re sitting in? So what to God? He is GOD. He made us. Can He not redeem that which he made, though we corrupt it far beyond it’s original beauty? He’s sovereign over the
circumstances. He ordained the circumstances. He’s sovereign over the future; He’s working in the past, the present, the future. Everything He does is infused with glory and goodness. Jesus uses spit and dirt to heal. He doesn’t turn from the life-long bleeder of a woman. He touches the  lesioned-skin of the outcast leper and heals it. Ugly made beautiful. Everything beautiful, under His hands.

"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”

Galatians 5:13

Tabitha (who will soon be my roommate) is a sophomore Technical and Professional Communications major at Cedarville University. She enjoys the outdoors, running, and hopes to eventually own a dog and be Anne of Green Gables in a play.