The other day, David Hayward (a.k.a. Naked Pastor) updated his Facebook status thus:
It’s going to hurt anyway. So if you’re going to love, give it everything.
He’s right. We can’t save ourselves from hurt by refusing to expose ourselves to love. That in mind, we may as well dive right into the deep end.
Because love doesn’t just hurt when we give it away and we’re rejected. It doesn’t just hurt when we suffer abuses at the hands of another. It doesn’t just hurt when our personal romance novel ends. It hurts when we see others rejected, abused, and lonely.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for a lot of people. Right now, many people are grieving the recent deaths of students at a local high school. (Two very different situations, but both tragic for the loss of young lives.) Although I didn’t personally know either of the students, I do know people who did. My heart aches for their loss.
If I chose to, I could wall myself off from others’ grief. I could turn the other way, pretend it didn’t exist. But if I do that, I miss out on the richness of a life lived in symbiosis with others. In building my wall, I create my own prison. I won’t avoid tragedies in my own life, but I may keep everyone else out, leaving myself no one to help carry my pain. Not only that, I will effectively keep out joy. I will miss out on all the good things that come from loving others and being loved in return.
There is no way to live on this earth without experiencing hurt. There is only go through it alone, or with others. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather keep the doors and windows of my heart wide open so I can know the fullness of joy, despite the pain.
