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September 20, 2005
Hurt
It's fall, a season still so novel to me that it always inspires delight. But, this year, autumn seems to have brought something else along with the rusting leaves and cooling air. There's a vague ache, a persistent soreness of the soul. This year, my life is lightly touching or softly brushing by lives of others that are soaked in painful loss. Some hurts are recent, others are years old but still throbbing.
Mrs. Duble, Noah's grandmother, has asked me several times in recent weeks: "Does this make you and Noel scared? Troy and Sarah were like you and Noel, with everything going for them. Does it scare you to think this could happen to you?" Anticipating the hurt makes me wince, but I tell her, honestly, that I'm not afraid.
In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis says this about the nature of love:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be 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 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. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
As I've listened to and watched the responses of "those who mourn," it's clear that they would never trade loving and knowing the person they lost for a painless existence. They risked -- and experienced -- tragedy, but escaped damnation. In loving and being broken, they became more like Jesus who, because He knew the Father completely, suffered unimaginably when the Father's face turned away. These friends have also resisted the temptation to protect themselves from further injury. Even as they wrestle with the void of their loss, they persist in take risks with their hearts by continuing to long and love.
When I pray for these people I am humbled. It is an honorable joy to intercede for ones who have silently and unknowingly given me courage by walking in obedient faith.
Faith | By elissa | 11:45 AM
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