Love's Wounds

This morning my heart was reflecting on an expression I coined years ago:

"It takes but a moment to wound, 

and often a lifetime to heal."  

I have shared this statement with many of you as you shared your tears with me through the years.

Re-quoting from a grief article I read earlier this week:
          "Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that (you and I)  can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that (you and I)  can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life."

As I regularly ponder the sheer amount of knowledge I have concerning many people's "love-wounds," as well as my own, I find immeasurable comfort in knowing Jesus knows firsthand the pain of love-wounds and the scars they leave behind.

Such a delicate, formidable balance is love. It must be resilient, yet delicate. It must be indiscriminate, yet protected.  It must be comfort, yet correction.  It must stand, yet lay down.

On one hand, Matthew 7:6 warns us, "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."   How many faces, including that of my own, flash before me as I write this; faces of trampled souls and hearts torn to bits.

On the other hand John 15:13 exhorts us, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." 

I do not have a hard and fast answer to how far is far enough when it comes to love's wounds.  I know in a recent situation I faced I heard the Lord say, "I am not asking you to die when I already did so."  

I suppose if there is to be anything hard and fast about love, it is found in following the voice of the One who personifies Agape.  We are instruments of Love.... we are not Love. There is One and only One who fills those shoes. 

That said, the Word is full of exhortations that charge us with loving one another, and it is a given in this fallen world that to love means harm and disappointment will come.

One of my favorite movies is "Love Comes Softly."  Therein contained in the clip below is Clark Davis' line, "The truth of God's love is not that He allows bad things to happen. It's His promise that He'll be there with us when they do." 

"Agape never fails"  
1 Corin. 13:8   

No, no HE does not.

Praying in earnest for the brokenhearted. May your wounds heal, and the scars left behind be a testament you loved deeply.... you lived deeply.

Your sister-in-the-Lord,
Deborah