Love Hurts

"Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and mars

Any heart not tough nor strong enough

To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain

Love is like a cloud, holds a lot of rain

Love hurts, love hurts"

Love Hurts~Everly Brothers

I've been having trouble with my heart lately. It seems to be regularly breaking. Some of the reasons for the wreckage, sadly, are usual ones, but it seems to me, that even more grievously, that there are new reasons, coming from the places that my heart were supposed to be SAFE.

I've never had the ability to just not care. I ALWAYS CARE. Some of the problems are big ones but some of them aren't. Lack of confidence and a need to be loved have put me in such a place of vulnerability (both of these I realize are my own issues that need to be worked through), small things slay me. The offender may not even realize what they had done. Or if they did, why in the world would someone get upset over that? After the hurt, it takes so much for me to "put myself out there" again, but I try all the same.

Lately, though, I have to keep battling my reaction. I want to just shut up shop. Slam the door. Bolt the lock. Hang a message on the door that says, "CLOSED". Put my back to it and slide into the floor, and say, "There. You won't get me again."

To be honest, I have had moments where I sincerely considered running away--States-on-the-U.S.-map, away. After that moment when skipping town seems to be the only answer, the next moment reveals all the new hurt it would cause.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless-- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Sometimes, I would probably wish for an "unbreakable" or "impenetrable" heart to save myself, but I know I've never and never will desire an "irredeemable"one.  

As always, I write these things when the pain is not as sharp and the days are not as dark. I don't have the ability to compose when the hurt is fresh. I have to wait for the scab to form and the scar to begin before I can have perspective enough not to just rant with my fingertips against the keyboard. 

I know I am not the only one. I am sure many of you feel alone at times, maybe often. I might even be the reason for one of those times of pain. If I was, I am sorry. It stinks, doesn't it?

The most important One that isn't a stranger to this feeling is our LORD. All through history, those that He loves so dearly, betray Him, deny Him, laugh at Him, ignore Him, blaspheme Him, lie to Him, and only run to Him when they need help.

As I reflect on this, being one of those that He dearly loves, and treating Him thus more often than I can count, I am thankful for my hurt. I am thankful that it slaps me in the face. That it draws my attention to my own sin, against Him and others. 

Isaiah 63:8-9

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁸ He said, “They are my very own people.
    Surely they will not betray me again.”
    And he became their Savior.
⁹ In all their suffering he also suffered,
    and he personally^[a] rescued them.
In his love and mercy he redeemed them.
    He lifted them up and carried them
    through all the years.

"Surely they will not betray me again."

But they do.

But He, the One True God, "in all their suffering He also suffered,":

"...personally rescued them. In His love and mercy He redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them through all the years."

I'll keep my heart that breaks, in hopes that in it's brokenness, I will somehow learn to love as He loves.