"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly 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 the perturbations of love is Hell."
Some days, I look at my life with its "hobbies and little luxuries," its meaningless laughter and diversions, its imitations of love, and see an environment hostile to reality...the fragile creation of a person trying desperately to pretend ownership of my own life. It's on those days that I realize the surest path to hell is not to do evil things, but to never awaken to reality...which is why, in some ways, I'm far more worried about my rich, "good people" American friends than starving children overseas or people who have done terrible things. What do a starving child, a murderer, and a victim of the sex trade have in common? They all know there is such a thing as evil and that we by ourselves are too weak to conquer it.
A distracted environment is far more hostile to the Truth than an evil one.
It's on these days when I realize the current trappings of my life mean nothing, nor are they what I rejoice in. But what I love - that matters. And what I love is Jesus Christ, because He is the only thing that is real in a world full of unrealities, diversions, and deceit. And even when life is dark, I see His Love everywhere! In His Word, in books, in conversations, in people's eyes, in animals, in growing green things. The Creator can be seen in all of His creations, and with the new eyes He has given me, I can see beauty where before I could only see ugliness.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable." My life's goal is to have a vulnerable heart before Christ. To allow Him to hurt me so I can change for the better, to clean me up when I'm dirty and pick me up when I've fallen. To allow Him to bless me when I don't deserve it, love me when I hate others, and lead me when I want to walk in the other direction.
You can't know the Truth if you refuse to be vulnerable, nor can you know Love.
From 2 Corinthians:
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
My dream is for reality...not the ugly reality of this world that will pass away, but the truth of my everlasting God who will one day destroy everything that has caused pain, anger, jealousy, or hatred. That is how I try to live every day, seeking reality. I won't always write things as heavy as this, but it's important that you know why I do everything I do. Why I want to know you for who you are. Why I want us to stop pretending. Why I want you to know this Mediator between God and Man, Jesus Christ.
So that one day, we can all stand with unveiled faces before Him, finally free...and fully loved.
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