Most of us fall into romantic love, dazzled by beauty, charm, personality, and promise. But the longer love lasts, the more it asks a deeper question: Do we love what is eternal beneath what first captivated us?

We do not fall in love with God just once. We fall in love again and again, each time letting go of the God we knew, to discover the God we are now ready for.

Sometimes what we call love is not intimacy at all, but a powerful fixation that quietly takes over our inner life, our perspective, and our behavior. 

Whenever two people love each other, there is a meeting of needs and qualities. These can be physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. We are drawn to those who satisfy something essential in us. This is true of romantic love, familial love, and friendship alike.

The world brightens, the heart awakens, and another person seems to hold the key to our wholeness. Yet, as Jungian analyst and spiritual teacher Robert A. Johnson reminds us, this intoxicating experience is not an ending, but an initiation.

When we fall in love, it feels as though we have finally found someone who completes us, understands us, and mirrors something essential we have been longing for all along.

Few experiences have the power to rearrange our inner world the way love does. One moment we are standing on familiar ground; the next, we are swept off our feet, changed, enlivened, and wonderfully undone.