Love Hurts, But That's What Makes It Great

Do we really know love, great love, apart from pain?

I feel pain, an internal kind of heart pain if I sense that my wife is disappointed with me, or if I have done (left undone) something that has pained her. I may not be aware of the specific cause, only the apparent hurt because I know her. Pain is real.

In love there is both trust and expectation. We expect that the one we love, the one who loves us, will do or act according to what is best for us and we will behave in order to obtain what's best for the one we love. We trust them with our love, with our very heart, our person, our soul. In loving someone we give ourselves to them with the expectation that they will in turn love us and not hurt us.

This will never work perfectly on the human level because we are all broken - we don't work exactly like we're suppose to. If we know we are broken and the person we love is broken, then we know also that by loving someone we are creating a relationship, and pain is part of relationships between broken people.

Then why do we bother with relationships? First, without relationships we experience the pain of loneliness, which is unnatural and potentially worse than being wounded by someone we love. Second, I believe there is the hope of love, the hope of relationships void of pain. This was possible with the first man and woman until they doubted God. And there is the possibility of partially experiencing this with God as He loves us perfectly even though our love for Him is not yet perfected.

It's as if our souls remember a story of perfect love from long, long ago that has such a ring of truth and reality to it that we want to believe it and go searching for it. But over time, pain may so scar the soul that this story of perfect love is finally forgotten and hope dies.

This is not true for the child of God though. He has a new heart that cannot be overcome by the scars of pain. The blood that pulses through this new heart is the blood of Jesus and the temporary wound caused by broken people don't scar this heart. The Great Physician's surgery leaves no scar. Even though woundings come and still cause pain, the new heart never loses hope. Because His love for us, toward us, in us; His love that flows through us to those around us; is perfect, steady, always achieving what is best; we are able to persevere, to never give up even though the ones we love will hurt us and we will hurt the One who is perfect love.

DO NOT DOUBT THE GREATNESS OF HIS LOVE FOR YOU!
Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12