Arguing with lyrics 3: Time and Tide

Here we go. This is probably the big one that fits both bills: it's full of inaccurate thinking and was also huge for me emotionally in the same context as We Belong. From Basia Trzetrzelewska (yes, I can pronounce it, and I used to know how to spell it but had to look it up now; she primarily goes by her first name), I'd never even have heard of this song if it weren't for her:

It's hard for me to stop my heart love never knows when the time is right I don't want to hurt anybody but can't help loving you I never felt like this before I know this is passion worth waiting for let love take take its course hat's the only thing for us to do

Refrain: We've got time, oh baby, there's no rush gonna be a better day for us hang on and I will wait for you our love will always stay as good as new 

Time and tide nothing and no one can stop us now for better for worse this time I'm sure it's gonna last How can I stop my heart? Love never knows when the time is right don't want to hurt anybody don't want to make them cry don't want to make them cry

Refrain 

Time and tide nothing and no one can stop us now for better for worse
this time I'm sure it's gonna last gonna last forever 

We've got time, oh baby there's no rush gonna be a better day for us  hang on and I will wait for you

I'm sure I embraced this song well outside of the artist's intentions. Now I find I must approach it by examining the difference between the worldly conception of love and the Christian one, as best expressed 1 Cor 13. The world treats "falling in love" as an uncontrollable force, an event that simply overwhelms the participants in spite of themselves. It ignores the role that our decisions and actions play in nurturing romantic love, and exalts romance at the expense of complete, lifelong love, of which romance is also an important element, but only one!


It is hard to stop the heart, and the degree to which we've nurtured the habit of acting out of our feelings rather than in careful consideration of everyone's best interest will determine just how hard it is for us. But love always knows when the time is right, for love never rejoices in wrong, but always rejoices in the right. I knew then that the time wasn't right, but so desperately wanted it to be anyway. And while maybe I didn't want to hurt anybody, what I wanted more was what I wanted. I could've helped loving her in ways that weren't appropriate given our respective marriages. I just wanted to love her more than I wanted to love my wife, and that was very unfair to both of them.

Passion may be worth waiting for, but more importantly, it is worth nurturing in the marriage relationship to the same degree we nurture it in a new romance. But on this the song was right: the right thing to do would have been to let life take its course, rather than try to put my feelings in charge.

And there's no way I could be the husband I'm called to be, that I could love my wife as she and I both deserve, if I were always looking for some unknown better day when I could be with her instead. I've long since figured out that my wife deserves better than to be looked beyond, as if she were some Dora I must survive to be with the person I really should have been with all along (I never should have read David Copperfield, though perhaps I should read it again now that I have the proper perspective on my life). My better day is each one I spend devoted to the one who is my partner for life, and that's what I'm to hang onto.