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“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 casketsafe, 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.” – C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves Have you ever loved someone only to end up hurting? Today I start my series on relationships with a little of my own history. I was 21 years old, in college, working at the hospital. I met and fell in love with a guy that I eventually became engaged to. At first, as with most relationships, everything was wonderful. But, somewhere in the middle, I started to hurt. Things were not going as planned. First, postponed engagement. Then, cancelled wedding. Next, break-up. Then, back together, re-engaged. I’ll never forget the day he looked at me and said “I’m not in love with you anymore.” I was angry. For months, I could feel him pulling away. Now, my worst fear had come true. The man who was going to marry me, who I loved, had changed his mind somewhere along the way. My heart had had enough. We had argued in previous months about the ways he was choosing to spend his time. Weird stuff involving questionable time with other women. Only to find out that he had been talking (and I really don’t know what else) to another woman, that he promptly started dating after we broke up and, within months, bought her an engagement ring. Betrayal is much worse than rejection. I had given him 4 and a half years of my life. There is a place of brokenness that words cannot describe, where our battered hearts are gasping for air, wondering what it feels like without the pain. My limping heart had taken a beating. How was it that love could bring so much pain? I had opened up my heart, given, hoped, shared, received the love of someone with whom I was planning the rest of my life. Now what?? How could GOD let this happen to me? I was angry. At him (the man) for breaking his promises to me, for giving me hope, for betraying me. I was angry at myself for believing, for staying, for loving. I was angry with GOD. WHY? How? What was I supposed to do now? All of our plans now meant nothing. Everything we’d planned, dreamed of doing together- our wedding, our honeymoon, our house, our children, our life together. Gone. Over. Forever. I stood stunned. Numb. Motionless. “I don’t want to even think about tommorow.” For so long the pages of my tommorows had included this man. I was being forced to throw away that book, and I didn’t want to be in this situation. I didn’t choose this. Why was I hurting so much? How could I make it stop? Pain. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I cried out to God. Where are YOU? My hurt was now more real that anything else. No one else could feel my pain, could really understand it. How could they? They weren’t me. Similar situations, but not MY situation. I stood in a desolate place, the broken pieces lying in piles around me. I had lost everything that was important to me, except for my family & a few close friends. I looked to HIM, and the little bit of hope that still survived raised a little white flag. “I give up. I surrender. Lord, only you can turn this into something beautiful. Show yourself to me!” I had nothing to lose. I didn’t “feel” hope or belief or faith. But, in the corner of my heart, I remembered Jesus, who I met as a child of 6. I remembered seeing His face, feeling Him next to me. I was desperate. I needed. So, I took what was left of me and my life, and I gave it to Him. A miracle happened. My brothers asked me to move to Charlotte. New place to live, new job, new car, new friends, new church, new everything. New and BETTER. Not just better, but exactly what my heart REALLY wanted all along. The places where I felt the deepest pain were met with the deepest LOVE I have ever known. In a place where no hug or word or well-intentioned act of love could assuage my pain, He, GOD, comforted me and made me feel better. Day by day, hurt by hurt, He began to pour out something that only comes from Him- divine healing. A precious friend told me over and over, “You won’t always hurt. One day, you will wake up and realize that the pain is missing.” It came little by little, like how the tide will creep across your toes in waves while you’re sitting in the sand until, after a while, you’re sitting in the ocean. Why? Because it came toward you until it covered you, until you were immersed in it. It was His love and it was real. More real than the pain. That day came. I remember it, vividly. Suddenly, something that I wasn’t able to stop, it was gone! Miracle, really. How you describe how healing happens? Like a broken leg, cell by cell, your bone is being repaired until one day, you’re walking again without pain. It’s similar with our hearts. It comes like a blanket over you as you lie in bed, tears streaming down your face as you miss the person you once loved. It comes as a friend holding you as you sob into their chest. It comes as a love song that makes you think you might be able to love again. It comes in hopes coming true and in wishes fulfilled. It comes with time. Most of all, it comes from a very REAL GOD who is able to express love to us in every way that we need to feel it. As I sit in my kitchen writing and reflecting over the past two years since I moved to Charlotte, I am amazed. I am not the same Monika that I was in July 2004. I’m so happy. I have so much real joy. I love, unafraid. And, I guard this joy. It’s mine. He gave it to me. “Why do you smile so much?… You laugh a lot….” People wonder. They don’t know, but I do. He, my closest friend, GOD, knows, too. Scars don’t hurt, rather they are reminders that we once did. My scars remind me of a bond that I have with the Creator of the Universe that no one can take away from me or reason away. He healed me and in the place of my hurts, gave me unspeakable joy and never-ending love. The reality of our pain can only be surpassed by the experience of His love. There is nothing that man can do to us that God cannot heal or restore or make right in us. And, now I believe, in love because of Him whose name is LOVE. |
Learning to Love 
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