The Risk of Love

A friend of mine got fired. It happened on Friday, but I didn’t find out until I walked out of the coffee kitchen, which sits directly across from his cubical, and found his office completely empty. I expressed a few words of shock, grasped for any other explanation for why his office is empty--he switched cubes, maybe he was trying to straighten up his office, etc.--and finally was told “Yeah. It happened Friday.” Immediately, my throat tightened up and my head started to ache in front of unreleasable tears. I stomped into my office and screamed, “I can’t believe they fired Alan! I hate this place!”

This episode was not helpful to my issue with permanence. Everything tangible in life is also temporary, so that means that everything is temporary. The only things on this earth that are not temporary are emotions. So, if I’m hurt by someone or something, that lasts forever in some form or another. It’s hard to say the same of positive emotions, like happiness or love. It’s so easy to let hurt linger, but so difficult to let happiness linger, isn’t it?

Besides my friend getting fired, this issue has resurfaced because tomorrow my mom goes in for a procedure to have some abnormal cells removed from her cervix. The chance that she could get cervical cancer is extremely low, but I had already worked myself up into a frenzy before I researched the prognosis of mild dysplasia. I mean, if something happened to her, I know I could deal with it, but I don’t think it would be pretty. It’s hard enough on a day to day basis not to give up on “the narrow path.” Throw sickness and death in there and I can only hope that the habit of walking with God through difficult times will kick in. I believe it would. It’s just one of those things you don’t know if you can deal with until you have to deal with it.

But anyway, realizing that everything in my life is temporary makes me wonder if finding love, friendship, and acceptance on earth is even worth the risk. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Sometimes I seriously doubt that. Love may be worth it because you are enriching someone else’s life, but relationship may not be. I wonder if the two really go hand-in-hand. In my opinion, love is something you choose to do; in other words, it’s not a feeling….and I think the deepest feelings are formed through relationships.

It makes me wonder if I should ever get married, even if I wanted to. What if the pain of loss is stronger than the delight of love? I know that God is with me through all my hurts; I’ve experienced that. But wouldn’t it be better just to avoid hurt altogether? But then again, sometimes the pain of loneliness is worse than the pain of loss.

Maybe when I really begin to believe that, I’ll think about getting into a relationship. Until then, what about my relationships with my friends? I’m tempted to keep them at arm’s length, too. But maybe it’s the pain of loss or the possibility of loss that keeps us in check with God. Maybe I should just go all out with loving people, knowing that I will get hurt, but that God is bigger than my pain. Maybe I should be vulnerable since I know who I am in Christ, and knowing who I am in Christ means that I know that only He can love me perfectly, and that He is bigger than my pain.

Maybe the risk of love is worth the comfort I receive from Him when I hurt.