Should I or should I not love?
"Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies ... the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.
Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking."
Henri Nouwen
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to 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
Whether it is choosing to love someone in a relationship, or to love someone in ministry, it requires one to be vulnerable and to give of oneself to another. Sometimes...we grow tired in ministry and disillusioned and jaded, cos we have given, and it's painful when what we have given is perceived as unreciprocrated. Or we have given, and it seems like there is no point in giving. We then numb ourselves so as to hide from the pain of rejection. We pretend that we don't care.
One thing I realise though, in order to love others properly, we ought to know that we are loved by God, greatly precious and valued by Him. Because we have the right perspective of ourselves, we know that we should be treated rightly by others. And to learn to say no, when boundaries are crossed. To love oneself enough to be able to say no.
Its such a thin line to thread on though. When is loving a person enough? How does one know that one has crossed beyond the boundary, such that loving others becomes harmful to oneself? I guess....when loving others becomes a means to receive love, rather than being able to love out of a sense of security of who you are in Christ. Does it make any sense?
2 comments:
I suppose it is not a decision we have to make. We are all called to love one another. It is through making choices, and ironically through hurts for that matter, that we grow in Christ. In any relationships, there will be problems. Because no one is perfect like Christ, nobody can love as completely as Christ loves.
hey anon,
thanks for your comments....u r right, I think what u said is kind of similar to what i am saying in my next post. ;p
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