When love sends its fair messengers
To dance across the stage of your mind
To woo the vulnerabilities of your soul
To test the resolve of your spirit
To enflame the attention of your being
To entangle your heart with the blossom of promise…..

Make sure it is real – not based on dependence, infatuation, or surface level adoration
Make sure it is available – not based on some future hopeful turn of events
Make sure it is unconditional – given fully, freely, fiercely, and forever
Make sure it is unclouded by distractions from other priorities – jointly valued and emphasized
Make sure it is mutual – not simply a one-way dream

To set your heart on a one-way love is to….
Grasp firmly to a lifeline of dust
Seek secure footing in the quicksand of anticipation
Manufacture dreams in the mirage of wishful thinking
Build sand castles on the seashore of hope
Place trust in the evaporative clouds of expectations

Published in Matched 4 Marriage – Meant 4 Life, 2011.