So to love invites suffering. Or when we love we will suffer. Or if we desire to love then we must be willing to suffer.
And able to suffer frequently and deeply.
If we would love.
- So love hurts. And sometimes it hurts like hell.
And this leads me to my second point:
- If your heart never hurts, then you probably do not love anyone very much.
Which leads me to this insight:
- When love begins to hurt we often choose to run away, to change the relationship, to call timeout and shake things up (i.e. shuffling out old relationships for new relationships).
And this brings me to my exhortation:
- If we would love, then we must be willing to stay with relationships even when they begin to hurt us, even when it feels like our hearts are about to shrivel into little dry balls of excrement and dust.
My heart is broken as I type these words. There is a family in this world, a family that has become my family, a family I love more (in many ways) than my own family. I have a new mom and dad and they don’t speak English, except for a little bit. I have two hard working brothers and two more beautiful sisters.
And it hurts my heart. My heart is broken.
How can I show them? How can I tell them so that they might understand how much God has done in Jesus Christ? How can I help them see that God can give them everything they need in Himself? How can I bring the love of God into their hearts? How can I set them free?
I wish that I could die for them, if only my death could bring them to God.
I know that I can’t set them free, though, only God can. And so I pray some more, cry my eyes out, and try to share the Bible with them again, the book that talks about a God who became a man so that He could suffer and die for His creatures who rebelled against Him and hated Him. And God did this, so the story goes, because He loved them, the creatures he made. Even though they had rejected Him, forgotten Him, and lived only for themselves.
- We cheated on God. But God remained faithful to Himself and even died and rose from the dead to bring many people back to Him.
I love this family. And I want them to see the light of God, I want them to know the real joy, the real hope, the real truth, and the real love of God in Jesus.
