Love is strength
being vulnerable in love
In the book of Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23, it encourages us to “guard” our hearts because “for everything you do flows from it.” When we openly love carelessly and give pieces of ourselves to people or things, we are not protecting our hearts. C.S Lewis the author of The Four Loves, shares the same idea of guarding your heart, “If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must wrap it up carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; and avoid all entanglements.” But where is the border line of protecting our hearts and closing our hearts off to the world and people?
Many people in order to avoid getting their hearts broken from people either through the phileo or Eros love; they will close their hearts up with prison bars and have restrictions on anyone who might want to love them. Donald Miller illustrates this through a comic strip in his book, Blue like Jazz; in his comic strip he writes about an astronaut named Don astronaut ,who is working on his spaceship, until one day there was an accident and he was cast out in space. Which led him to orbit around the earth; alone and scared, with no one to come to his rescue; he had a space suit that kept him alive for a little bit, but it did not last very long. Don Astronaut had, “orbited the earth for fifty-three years before he died a very lonely and crazy man- just a shell of a thing with hardly any spark.” (170)
Basically, Miller is saying that many people are like Don Astronaut, they live in their own little spaceship bubble allowing nobody to love on them or allow themselves to love on others. C.S Lewis would agree with some of Millers illustration, because Don Astronaut kept himself safe and sound by hobbies such as building his spaceship. But, in that loneliness people can find themselves very often feeling depressed and suicidal, because God created us to be in communion with others.When we take the focus off on us, we are able to not only love ourselves, but others.
According to Loa Tzu, “[b]eing loved by some one gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Donald Miller shares the other view point of when we don’t allow others to love on us and we don’t allow ourselves to love on others; we can isolate ourselves and we don’t grow as we should. Miller goes on acknowledging that, all his thoughts were “mingled together” because he didn’t have no one to remind him of “what was real and what was not real.” Tzu’s point is that when we love others we are able to have courage, and that courage comes when we are able to love people because we are sharing a piece of ourselves to them.
King David the psalmist states, “[t]he Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” The book of Psalms chapter 34 verse 18, God has made us to be loved and to love; he would never give us something that we could not do or receive. Yes, loving others means being vulnerable to others. Yes, loving others means that we will be hurt and crushed in spirit. But God promises us that he is close to us to heal and restore those who are broken when we love and are hurt by it. Many times people’s view on love is tainted because they’ve experienced it through the cultural sense of phileo. As for God’s love will never hurt us, it is always caring and fulfilling. His love is Agape and we will never be able to truly grasp his love for us. Loving is taking a step of faith and courage, and God is there when we do that and he is joyful when we take those steps because it means we’re growing and being selfless.
God allows people in our lives, I believe either as a lesson or a blessing, and in my life I have experienced both. There have been people that I have loved and I have left hurting; sometimes that pain of loving someone can build you up and make you wiser. I don’t regret the times that God has placed people in my life, because it doesn’t matter if that person was a blessing or a lesson, I became stronger and better. Loving people is being selfless and helps you have courage, just as the Loa Tzu said. King David would also agree that, sometimes the pain in loving someone can feel like it will never go away, but all pain is temporary because we grow and heal, and God allows our hearts to heal and he gives us the strength to continue to love, even when we feel we can’t.
