and the banner over us is love

appeared in the October 2005 issue of The Voice.

She always came in forcefully as if she were exiting a department store on Christmas Eve with lots of bags and boxes.

Sociology usually started a few minutes prior to Gina's grand entrance. Every day I sat in the back of the class and waited with one eye on the door until she burst through it. Gina had to walk by me to take her seat. When she passed, I looked down, pretending to be doing anything besides watching her. Her shoes were red.

Gina wore cardigans and old sweaters held together with safety pins, small silver spacers in her ears and a tiny stud in the side of her nose.

One day Gina sat next to me during a class visit to the computer lab. Throughout the lab, we exchanged small pleasantries. But I hadn't the courage to smile or even look at her face while we talked. Instead, I pretended to be trying to concentrate on the assignment.

Sociology ended, and I didn't have much more contact with Gina than the computer lab incident.
I had no classes with Gina the next quarter. I hardly thought about her until I saw her coming out of cell biology while I was going into one of my math classes. We talked in the hallway each day-so much that I eventually dropped the math class altogether.

At the time I had very lofty ideals, and although my morals and convictions were not grounded in any belief system, I made attempts to live by them. One of those convictions I wrestled with was about the misconception of love.

I defined love as a strong affection for another arising out of narcissism and a necessity to be vindicated by others, such as love from a child to a parent, or a reflection of one's feelings and desire bounced off of someone else and back onto oneself, such as the love of a boyfriend or girlfriend.

I told Gina love wasn't real. She would roll her eyes. I told her that fear was the "invisible hand" that guided us. She laughed. The more we talked, the more I liked her. She was brutally honest with her many shortcomings and the vices she had overcome and was working on overcoming. I had never seen that kind of open honesty.

I fell in love with everything all the time, but never with a woman. Above all, women served as an opiate for most men. Nevertheless, Gina quickly became the object of most of my narrative fiction homework.

Gina was also a Christian. She gave me a copy of "No Compromise: the life story of Keith Green." I read it immediately. Green's relationship with God fascinated me. His wife, Melody, was offended when Keith said that he would not love anyone as much as he loved God, not even her. This statement seemed crazy because not only was Melody a "real person" but also Keith would have to live the rest of his life with her! I had to find out if Jesus Christ was real.

God had never been in my love equation before, and the possibility of God being real gave me a desire to read more. Gina gave me a Bible and a copy of "Mere Christianity." After reading "mere Christianity," I read the book of John. Then Matthew. Romans.

I was thrilled by the truth that life was not about me but about the God who created me.

Gina and I began spending time together away from Big Bend Community College. We went for long walks at night, usually stopping at a swing set behind a little Presbyterian church. The air was crisp. Gina wore a red scarf and put her arm through mine. It was the sweetest gesture.

Soon, we realized that our feelings for one another were growing. But we felt God calling us apart. I saw this isolation as a chance to "prove myself" to God. I was also excited to show my friends that my growing belief in Jesus was not about a girl.

An excitement like I had never had came over me when I pulled out of her driveway for the last time. I thought Christ wanted to teach me what it meant to be alone. Neither Gina nor I had any idea that the six months apart would prepare us for a lifetime together.