Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Have you learned to love?

(Katie) Last night for date night, James and I decided to enjoy the beautiful Fall evening and bike into town for dinner. Throughout the evening, we kept discussing what it means to love people who are really hard to love. As we talked, James helped me to see how often my love is quite calculated. I meticulously weigh the possibility of getting  hurt. Often, I am more focused on ME and protecting myself than actually extending LOVE.

Love is costly and requires great courage. Daily, we are each faced with the choice to leave our hearts on the shelf and maybe spare ourselves some pain. My husband is someone who models God's mandate to love very well. James willingly risks his heart to love people, knowing the depth of their brokenness. Even when he knows he will be disappointed, heartbroken, and that his love will not be reciprocated, James refuses to hold back love.I know that God desires to free each of us so that we can love others without the costly preoccupation of having to pose and protect ourselves. 

C.S Lewis says it well, "love anything and your heart will surely be wrung." You would think that such bending and stretching- such suffering would do you in. But risky love works by inverse principle. Somehow our hearts become larger in the process. The more we love, the more we are able to love. We are not depleted, by strangely replenished. We are set free. Given more love. As David says in the psalms, "I will run the way of thy commandments, and thou shalt enlarge my heart!" 

I can't begin to imagine what Jesus will ask us when we get to Heaven someday. But, I imagine as we sit with Him and look over our life, the one question He will ask us is: Did you learn to love?

As someone whose fear of rejection, abandonment, and getting hurt can often hold me back from loving those who I know will hurt me, I am grateful that my husband pushes me to take the risk...to put the walls down... and trust that God will not only protect my heart in the process, but He will enlarge my heart.

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