My Shattered Casket

 "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. To love is to be vulnerable." - C.S. Lewis

It happened. I was wrung. I was broken.

"I was broken." 

I had been that person. I had wrapped my heart tightly. It was safe, unbroken, impenetrable, but not irredeemable.

Vulnerability came at a cost. I acted in faith knowing that opening up and being vulnerable was the best and only way. I pried open my casket, I dug deep and touched old wounds. Wounds that had scarred but not healed. I cried from the searing pain of it. I was exposed and vulnerable. So vulnerable. I was learning to love. Regardless of my pain love was happening. I was beginning to see myself capable of showing love and better, receiving it. With love, came healing.

But just like Mr. Lewis predicted, my heart was wrung, and broken.

"...my heart was wrung, and broken."

I was crushed. My carefully packed away heart looked in horror as my shattered casket lay in pieces at my feet. My vulnerability resulted in this. How? How can this be what God intended? This cannot be what comes from love.

Oh yes, heart. It can.

Remember, Love was betrayed, mocked, spit on, beaten, pierced, and nailed. Love was broken. So in choosing to love freely I learned that love hurts. The selfishness that kept my heart from being broken before was also keeping my heart from truly loving.

So, on this side of my brokenness I'm not deterred. I am not crawling back to my broken coffin and building a protection from the shards and rubble. Though hurting, my heart is capable of loving again, loving still. I praise the One who crushed my reasons for restraining and withholding and I accept His grace to freely choose to love again. I cannot say for sure that my selfishness will not attempt to creep into my actions. That over time the motionlessness of safety will beacon me. But I can say that through the power of the cross I am choosing not to let it encapsulate me again.

"...through the power of the cross I am choosing not to let it [selfishness] encapsulate me again."

"To love at all is to be vulnerable." I choose to truly love, AT ALL. Nothing and no one could have prepared me to love well better than God's truth in 1 Corinthians. I can't explain the confidence that I was loving best when I didn't feel like loving at all. That's when Love stepped in. When patience is called, I want to choose love. When kindness is called, I want to choose love. When humility is called, I want to choose love. When concern is called, I want to choose love. When selflessness is called, I want to choose love. When gentleness, forgiveness, rejoicing with the truth, bearing, believing, enduring is called, I want to choose love.

"I choose to truly love, AT ALL."

"...but the greatest is love."
1 Corinthians 13:13

"We love because He loved us first."
1 John 4:19

"Love does no wrong to a neighbor..."
Romans 13:10

"...love covers all offenses."
Proverbs 10:12

"...keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins."
1 Peter 4:8

I am thankful for learning this. I am grateful for this process. I know that the shattered pieces of my selfishness will always serve as a reminder of what was and what, in God's strength, will never be again. I am standing on this side of my wrung and broken heart thankful for learning this, and learning it well. I am not blinded by the hurt my heart feels. Because believe me, it feels it this time. It is real. But I know that hurt is a result of loving well. I can't explain the peace I have in having loved.