Plain

"Do you know Jane Eyre?"
"Yes, I read the book when I was a kid."
"That's you... honest, passionate, and poetic!"

I re-read Jane Eyre the past weekend.
To the sixth-grader's mind, Jane Eyre is a breathtaking romance.
Plain and poor, she is rescued into marital bliss by a wealthy gentleman.

Plain.
My friend had tactfully forgotten to mention that Jane was plain.
And almost drowned in her love for Edward Rochester.

Who wouldn't want to sink in a sea of the other's intense ardor?
As she acknowledges, Edward "was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol." (Chapter 24)

Truth mars her happiness when she discovers he is still legally married, although to an insane woman. Nevertheless, he is willing to live with public ridicule and wants to marry her. Jane refuses on moral grounds and runs away to escape the tempest of her desires.

In the end, they are re-united even though Edward is now blind and maimed.

This March of 2011, another movie version of Jane Eyre is coming out.
14 has already been made.
It is an intense love story.

Am I a Jane?
Plain, yes.
Are you a Jane?
Perhaps no.

Am I strong enough to refuse vice intertwined with joy?
I'm not a Jane.

I need not be.
"I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD." (Hosea 2:21-22)
These are God's words to the adulterous nation of Israel as they forget the awesome miracles He wrought in their midst during their Egyptian slavery and offered sacrifice to other gods.

These are God's words to us as we sense deeply as Jane, "______ stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol."

I'm looking forward to watching Jane Eyre this March.
So when desire tugs at my heart, I can run.

Photo credit: http://enchantedserenityperiodfilms.blogspot.com/2009/12/jane-eyre-2011.html

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