Encouragement

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Loving someone is like removing your heart from your chest and placing it that person's hands. It's bound to get bruised even in the best of hands. Most likely it'll end up breaking multiple times along the way. Because we know this by experience we are often tempted to take our heart and lock it in an air tight vault and then throw away the key. The problem with that though is that our hearts need to breathe. Our hearts need sunlight and air and the warmth of another's touch. Sure in another's hands our hearts are bruised, torn, broken, and even sometimes crushed – but as fragile as they are they are also resilient. The broken heart heals, the crushed heart rises again from the dust like a phoenix rises from the ashes. But the heart that's locked away dies. It shrinks in on itself becoming harder and colder until it's no longer flesh but a solid piece of lead. It becomes a bullet in the gun we use to hurt others. This is why you must never lock your heart away. Keep it in your own hands for a little while if you must but then you need to be brave and give it away once again. For our hearts can only grow when they've been broken because that is when we are nearest to the heart of God. He is, “close to the broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18)” perhaps because He Himself has had His own heart broken millions of times since the creation of the world. For to love is to break – to be strong and weak at the same time.

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