{"id":6806,"date":"2020-10-17T16:40:34","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T06:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6806"},"modified":"2020-10-17T16:40:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T06:40:36","slug":"cracked-hearts-and-open-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/cracked-hearts-and-open-arms\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracked Hearts and Open Arms"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Cracked Hearts and Open Arms<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Bethany Kaldas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u2018But\u00a0love your enemies,\u00a0do good, and\u00a0lend,\u00a0hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and\u00a0you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.\u00a0Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.\u2019<\/em><\/p>Luke 6:35-36<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One of the hardest things in life is to love and not be loved in return\u2014or perhaps even worse, to love and be mistreated in return. I\u2019m not mainly speaking in a romantic sense (in fact, to take this in a romantic sense may be quite unwise)\u2014this goes far deeper than that. A parent who does everything he can to show love to his child and yet gets nothing but angst and rebellion and spite in return goes through just as much, if not more, agony as the unrequited lover. A servant may feel the darkest despair when she pours her whole heart and soul out to reach the young girl who is straying from Christ, only to have the girl fight back like she\u2019s the enemy. You may do everything you can to hold on to a dear friend, but sometimes they still walk away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve heard it said occasionally, within the Church,\nthat it is better to guard your heart against the world, not to love anyone or\nanything too much, because nothing here lasts. There is some truth to that\u2014though,\nperhaps, not the way it first seems. But you can see why the idea seems to make\nsense, right? People quarrel, they leave, they change from being caring to\nbeing cold, they can turn against you on the slightest provocation. Even if\nnone of this happens, everyone dies eventually. Even pets, even places, even\ninanimate objects are unlikely to outlast your affections. You\u2019ll be burned in\nthe end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, no matter how much effort you put into\na relationship\u2014of any kind\u2014and even if you do everything right, there is no\nsuch thing as a safe love. There is a way in which pain and love are\ninseparable. You must have open arms to love, and it is when your arms are open\nthat you are at your most vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why go through with it? If open arms mean broken\nhearts, then wouldn\u2019t it be better to always keep your guards up? Why would you\never let anyone in? Who could possibly be worth it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018There is no safe investment. 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 casket \u2013 safe, dark, motionless, airless \u2013 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 Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>C.S. Lewis,\u00a0The Four Loves<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If you live in constant fear of death, you will\nnever live at all. If you only love when you are certain your heart will not be\nwounded, you will never love at all. Love of any kind is the inevitable risk of\nbeing broken apart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Most assuredly, I say to you,\u00a0unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces muchgrain<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>John 12:24<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A grain doesn\u2019t just need to be buried to live\u2014it also needs to be cracked open. You can\u2019t walk out of a tomb before the stone has been rolled away, no matter how exhausting and painful that process is, no matter how much the sunlight burns your eyes. And it will burn. Love is a leap. Love is a risk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The leap of faith always means loving without expecting to be loved in return, giving without wanting to receive, inviting without hoping to be invited, holding without asking to be held. And every time I make a little leap, I catch a glimpse of the One who runs out to me and invites me into his joy, the joy in which I can find not only myself, but also my brothers and sisters. Thus the disciplines of trust and gratitude reveal the God who searches for me, burning with desire to take away all my resentments and complaints and to let me sit at his side at the heavenly banquet<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>Henri J.M. Nouwen,\u00a0Return of the Prodigal Son<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Love is not safe. Your heart will be broken. But there is One who broke His heart for you first. A Love that shone so bright, not from the safety of a throne as you know it, but hung in agony from a cross, pierced by nails and thorns. His heart broke so that all the cracks in yours, so small by comparison, can shine with the light of His. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love\u2019s as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One Who, having made us,
Knew The thing He had done,
Seeing what all that is
Our cross, and His<\/p>C. S. Lewis, Love\u2019s Warm as Tears<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Believe it or not (and people are very unlikely to ever say this to you out loud in actual words) but everyone\u2014even the most stubborn, arrogant, irritating people you know\u2014has a cracked heart. Everyone wants to be loved, even if they don\u2019t always act like they care. Love is never wasted, but they may sting you. When they see the cracks in your heart they might strike. After all, that is what we did to Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you open your heart, when you love knowing it\nmight break you, that is when you see Him. That is when you become like Him. He\ndied, not that you might remain safe in the tomb, but that you might meet Him\nbeyond it. There\u2019s no light in that tomb, no breath, no life. Life awaits you\nbeyond the walls you\u2019ve put around your heart. He awaits you still. For all the\ncracks you\u2019ve put in His heart, all the nails in His hands, still He awaits you\nwith arms open. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

God has given you a heart, and although cracks run\nthrough it, however deep, however wide, He has filled it with His love. Let\nthat love shine through the fractures in your own heart to theirs. Show them\nwhat it means to be loved regardless. He\u2019s shown you that you\u2019re worth it\u2014take\nthat risk. Show them they are too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We love\u00a0Him because He first loved us<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>1 John 4:19<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cracked Hearts and Open Arms By Bethany Kaldas \u2018But\u00a0love your enemies,\u00a0do good, and\u00a0lend,\u00a0hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and\u00a0you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.\u00a0Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.\u2019 Luke 6:35-36 One of the hardest … Continue reading “Cracked Hearts and Open Arms”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,6,454,453,60,452],"class_list":["post-6806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-christ","tag-love","tag-sacrfice","tag-safety","tag-service","tag-vulnurable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6808,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806\/revisions\/6808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}