So, I will admit it…I am scared to love.
Not just a little bit, but truly terrified.
And not loving in a way that is like, “Oh man, that person is cool, I am going to ‘love them.’” But loving in a way that Christ loved us. Loving in a way that we are called to love one another.
Its not this fairytale perfection that I thought.
Christ shows us how to love in a different way. In a radical way. In a true way.
I have been reading a lot of commentary on love, and what it actually means… and its been in perfect correspondence to the Christmas season. To love someone is to enter in to their lives, to their joys and to their sufferings.
When the totality of God was wrapped up in a tiny infant, it was God’s promise that he would enter in to our sufferings — not that he would take them away, but that he would be with us in the midst of the pain.
Emmanuel — God with us.
In the New Testament we see God’s heart through Jesus. Several times in the gospels, we see God’s compassion for us. As Henri Nouwen writes, Jesus’ compassion is explained with the Greek word, splangchnizomai, which means a deep and powerful expression. “The splangchna are the entrails of the body, or as we might say today, the guts. They are the place where our most intimate and intese emotions are located…when Jesus was moved to compassion, the source of all life trembled, the ground of all love burst open, and the abyss of God’s immense, inexhaustible and unfathomable tenderness revealed itself.” (Compassion, 14-15).
…and ‘love God and love your neighbor’ are the two highest commands? Right…
Ha, to love like that is hard. Its messy.
And there is most definitely pain involved.
Yikes.
I feel like there was a point in my life where I did love like that. With my entire mind, body and soul I existed to give my life away. And then I got hurt. And then I stopped. I was tired of the pain.
Now, I am tired of not feeling with such depth. And I am definitely tired of fear.
I read a wonderful quote by CS Lewis’s The Four Loves that explains the mentality I allowed myself to live in for the past year or so, and I am praying that God draws me out of this place so that I can love once more:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to keep it in tact, you must give your heart to no one…wrap it up carefully, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the coffin or casket of selfishness…but it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.”
Wow.
That one spoke a bit…
In writing all of this I guess I am just realizing that life isnt safe. God doesnt promise that we will be protected, or that we will have a perfect little life. He doesnt promise wealth and he doesnt promise a life without pain…his son was beaten and crucified. The early church was martyred. Why do I think I can protect myself from pain? Its such a lie. If anything, it will keep me from feeling at all.
God is slowly drawing my heart back into his light. I have tried to hide my heart in hopes that it would be ‘safe’ and ‘protected.’ But Psalms promises that GOD is our refuge. We lack no good thing in Him.
Jesus entered in to our mess so that we can have the courage to enter in with others, through his great love.
Christmas brings us hope. Christ came to earth. He entered in. We dont have to fear any longer. He is with us.
We dont have to protect ourselves — its a facade. We’re called to love, fully. There will be heartache, but Chist will be present in the pain.
