Who can agree with me when I say that friendships can be hard? We put ourselves fully out there for the one's we love, fully knowing that we could get rejected, dissapointed, and hurt. C.S. Lewis got it right when he said this, "To love at all is to be vulnerabe. 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 careful 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... The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell." So what do we do? Do we keep our hearts hidden from those we love or do we give them away with the possibility of getting crushed and hurt? How do we give our thoughts, time, and love to a person we know will someday fail us? We must first give ourselves fully to the one who will not fail us. We must find ourselves and our worth in God and God alone before we get in any kind of relationship because if we don't we will look for our self worth in relationships with fallen people and when those people hurt us we will start to think that we aren't worth much if even our friends hurt us and that we aren't worth being treated well. Our self worth and self value will take a plunge. But when we find ourselves in our Creator, knowing that we are made in His image and our loved by Him we are free to love others, knowing full well that we will get hurt, but trusting in the one who we find ourselves in.
"For anyone to enjoy relationship, they must repent of their need to control and their insistence that people fill them. Fallen people demand that others "come through" for them. Redeemed people are being met in the depths of their soul by Christ and are free to offer to others, free to desire, and willing to be dissapointed. Fallen people have been wounded by others and withdraw in order to protect themselves from further harm. Redeemed people know that they have something of value to offer; that they are made for relationship. Therefore, being safe and secure in their relationship with their Lord, they can risk being vulnerable with others and offer their true selves." -Stasi Eldridge (Captivating)
No comments:
Post a Comment