Encouragement

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God it hurts so much that I just want to run away, to turn my back and say, “I'm done”. But if I do that now how will I ever find the courage to stay? This was such a little thing. It hurts because I care. Is this what You had in mind when You told me to love? Is this not when I need to love most? When another's self-focused actions wound me? When the pain makes me want to put up walls and cast the offender from my heart? Is this when I must love? When I must choose to love when the pain urges me to hate. God, is this what love is for You too?

The two statements that “God is love” (1st John 4:8)and that You are “a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). I see now are one and the same thing. Love is exhilarating and giddy, making one long-suffering and brave. But love is also sorrow and grief and pain.

Love is patient when others are trying that patience. Love is kind when others have been unkind. Love doesn't envy when someone else gets what it's been believing for. Love doesn't boast even though it often feels overlooked. It keeps no records of the many, many, many wrongs done to it. It always protects its beloved, always trusts in God's sovereign plan, always hopes in His goodness, and always perseveres no matter the pain, the ache, the abandonment, the betrayal, the grief. Love never fails (1st Corinthians 13:4-8).

Perhaps that is what I have learned in this – what it means to love... truly. And also what it really means that You are love. Love that is not all joy and delight but also pain and grief. And perhaps I've understood (by experience) something of Your heart.

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