When Love Hurts
We all know that love is a many splendored thing. It’s the stuff of movies. It’s what beats our hearts and makes us gush at the sweetness of what being in love does for us… It’s babies and old ladies and puppies and men who arrive like knights in shinning armor. It’s faithfulness and honesty and acts of kindness and being there for others. It’s doing the right thing. So many, many things are on this list.
God tells us that love never fails. He spells it out for us, teaching us how we are to treat other people with mercy and grace and compassion. He expects for us to love one another. He expects us to.
So how is it that it can sometimes go so wrong? How is it that sometimes love hurts so deeply?
There is no easy answer.
What I have come to know, is that love unites us in His righteousness. When we love God first, we yearn to do His will, to be like Him in all that we do. We are kind and forgiving; we have integrity and character. When we seek God first, we act in accordance with His intentions for our lives which is rooted in honor and respect for those He has given to us to love.
The ways of the world are always in conflict with the ways of God. The world will celebrate a culture of “anything goes.” It tells us that being “happy” should be defined by feelings, fun and getting ahead of someone else. It rejoices in vindication and it breeds contempt. There are seemingly no rules. Sin is exalted.
We know that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy what God has given us. It’s a force that is constantly at work. Everyday, it claims victories in causing good men and women to go astray in big and little ways.
I wish that I could answer why. I wish that I could explain that some of us are fortified in breaking hearts and others of us are caused to have to endure them.
All I know is that God has us. I know that He works all things out for our good. Our stories are always evolving, shaping, and molding us into the people we are intended to be. We are created to love, even when others do what is contrary to us. As God is our defender, He will bring us to our new season where the hurts are mended and healed and we are loved in the manner He desires for us.
He will. I promise you.
I know the heaviness that comes with a broken heart. God wants for us to stand under the umbrella of His Grace. He wants for us to guard what He has placed within us and to not act out in retribution or offense. He wants us to pray for those that have hurt us and let Him take it from there.
Trust me, I know that this is a difficult thing to to.
Be fortified in knowing that nothing escapes God. He knows what we are going through at all times. Though we may feel like we are in the fire, know that there is a purpose for it. It is transforming us, refining us, and bringing us to something good.
From this side of your experience, you can hardly imagine saying that what you are going through will be “worth it.” I have lived long enough to know that somehow it will be. It has to be. God is going to make it right. He just always does.
Love never fails. It doesn’t. People fail in living a loving life. And though that often brings pain and suffering, stand in knowing that - even in our hurts - God is at work.
Better days ahead.