Sunday, October 22, 2017

our hearts are safe from pain in two places


St Cyprian talks to us today in A Year with the Church Fathers. He says that we need to lose our envy, because it continues to harden us day after day. And that’s a good image.

CS Lewis said that loving means being hurt. That anytime we love someone, or even some THING, we make ourselves vulnerable. That the only way to be safe from that pain is to stop loving altogether. Then our hearts will not be broken. But, he says, they will grow hard. They will become stones, in fact. And nothing will ever break them again… or touch them in any way. The only place, he says, that hearts are safe from being broken outside of heaven … is in hell.

So it’s important to realize that having a soft, broken heart is a good thing. We want to be in a position where love can hurt us. Because a heart that can be hurt is a heart that is still listening to His voice. When we harden our hearts against pain, we also harden them against hearing His still small voice, speaking to our hearts and teaching us that even though love hurts – it’s infinitely worth it.

God, thank You for giving us broken hearts.