To Love at All...

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it careful 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 only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell. (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves.)Today I am tired. I'm tired of my heart and life being hijacked. Or at least that's how it feels. I am tired of tiptoeing around the feelings of others so that their delicate hearts are no longer hurt. I'm tired of caring.. I feel exhausted and alone in the caring. I know it is selfishness on my part and that makes me even more tired. Maybe I'm just depressed... I don't know. I could blame the weather, the grey skies and lack of sunshine for bringing me down. It just seems like I spend my days trying to keep those around me from feeling down, or feeling angry, or feeling lonely, or feeling anxious, or feeling jealous, or upset. So I avoid friends, for fear of evoking those things in others. I avoid certain ministries. I avoid stepping on toes... all that avoiding leaves me very little. Work and entertaining... but both of those even in a limited sort of way. Technically I know, that if I quite worrying about pleasing people and started to focus on pleasing God and loving Him... I would find rest and perfect peace. I would be able to find that life abundant that I am seeking. But inevitibly when I do this someone I care about becomes hurt and angry and holds me responsible. I know it is a spiritual battle. I know that God can work it out... that He will fight for me. But in that moment I tend to just give up and give in. I cease and dissist in living my life and go back to bed. It's a terrible, vicious cycle and I want out. Please Father lift me out of this. I pray that you keep me from hiding and hardening my heart. Help me to stay vulnerable to you and your work in my life. Amen