Okay, so I'm on vacation.
My vacation may be comprised of activities uncommon to a true vacation, but the important thing is that I am receiving ten days apart from the emotional vacuum of my job. This vacation is also significant in that it is my first traveling expedition since the romantic disaster of 2010. But according to my friend Michael, I am at my best (i.e. spiritually myself) when I am taking risks.
Good news: it required almost five years to grieve my first heartbreak and begin taking risks, so I must be getting better at this -- not that I am welcoming more pain.
And at the risk of sounding cynical, this is what relationships bring: the potential for pain. The reason I never got hurt in my mid-to-late twenties was because I made myself emotionally unavailable. I risked nothing, I loved nothing, and I felt nothing.
Feeling is wonderful, but denying the existence of prior heartache is like convincing myself that 1+1=10...
You don't understand! My entire mastery of the mathematical discipline is contingent on 2 being the sum of 1 and itself!Such is the reckless pursuit of God and romance. Even if my heart wants to believe that I won't get hurt, my risk has not historically been rewarded by those I love. I must return to Christ's feet to learn binomials, discovering that my experiences have not contradicted reality, but neither have they offered a full picture of His plan. Caught in the lies of my pain is the truth: I've been hurt, but my Jesus restores hearts.
Questions never cease. What if I give up everything? What if my heart becomes so aligned with Christ that the world rejects me? What if nobody else will follow? What happens when it's just me and Him, and "further" dreams are cast aside? Will I cling to the pride of my lonely martyrdom, or will I humbly praise His name?
Can this heart manifest the joy of the Lord?
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