There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will 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 Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and [agitations] of love is Hell.
- C. S. Lewis
Why does this version of Hell seem so tempting to me? Can I have it both ways? Can I protect my heart from being 'wrung' and 'possibly broken' while at the same time allowing for love to come in? Must I risk in order to receive the reward in this case? What when I have lost it all on a yet another risk of vulnerability? How much can one heart take before it dies from another beating? Will the chance to risk again be presented to infinity, or will the heart's endurance finally fail? I feel I must leave my heart open...otherwise not only will it petrify and finally die, but it will do the same to the innocent hearts it meets. In theory I can endure my lone pain, I can't endure causing it in others for very long with much success.
1 comment:
This speaks volumes to me. I'm sick of being vulnerable. I wish I could wrap my heart and lock it up safe, but I don't want my heart to become impenetrable. I want to find the love that won't die because feelings have changed. The only One who can do that so far is Jesus. And if I truly have Christ in my heart, then locking it up does not allow His love to show either. But maybe your can have it both ways. I don't know how to do it by any means. There has to be a way to let love in and out but also protect yourself from being wrung and broken every time. I don't want to give up. I hope your "lone pain" has lessened.
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