to love the least
3:13 PM
/ the only heart worth breaking is yours /
silence falls.
it drapes like a curtain of stillness.
deep breaths.
gentle winds.
i wonder. i wonder if risking everything for the sake of love is any risk at all. says Child. if true love is giving everything, then losing everything is no risk at all.
Father smiles.
His cradle wraps around His daughter's tender body.
you only love to the extent you are willing to lose, child. whispers Father. withholding self is withholding love. withholding love is withholding life.
Child sinks into the warmness of her father.
deep breaths.
what's harder to give. asks Child. what you can see or what you cannot see. what you can hold in the palm of your hands or the things that you can only hold in your heart.
Father searches deep into the eyes of His beloved.
it is hardest to give when you see no justified need. it is hardest to give when you are most hurt. it is hardest to give when there is no "thank you" in return. it is hardest to give when releasing involves uncomfortable surrender. it is hardest to give when the receiving heart is least deserving in the eyes of the giver.
it is hard to give your "i was wrong, i'm sorry".
it is hard to give your "please come in. stay as long as you need".
it is hard to give your "i will give up everything to sit here and listen to your heart".
it is hard to give your "i don't understand. please help me understand".
it is hard to give your "you hurt me. you left me bleeding. you betrayed my hope. you shattered my sanity. but i love you. but i choose you. but i release resentment in exchange for the receiving of healing grace".
...
why does it become harder to see the bloodshot eyes of my fellow piercing into my own soul. why does it become easier to forget the silent desperation earth is drowning in, the more i look away. why do i begin to come up with every excuse under the burning sun why i shouldn't give. why i shouldn't help. why they don't deserve it. why someone else should take care of it. why they should just get it together and take care of it themselves.
why does it become so bloody easy to excuse my selfishness.
to excuse my superiority.
to excuse my unwillingness to sacrifice.
why in all of good heavens could i think for even a moment that i'm better.
that i deserve more.
that i have no need to love others. the way i have been loved.
true love. is selfless love.
true love. is reckless love.
true love is a love so wild it is blinded to all color. all things we humans possess. all reasons of differences. and can only see one thing.
a living, beating heart.
i was born to give.
i was born to give of my fullness. and of my emptiness.
i was born to give of my joy. and of my pain.
i was born to live with outstretched arms and hands wide open.
i was born to pour endlessly so i can die with my bucket empty.
so i can die completely and fully given to love.
the only heart worth breaking is my own.
the only heart worth cracking wide open is my own pulping heart.
that way love can seep in.
that way the oxygen of kindness can revive the deadness of my soul.
that way.
heaven can come to earth just a little bit more.
[ the more heaven comes to earth, the more earth will look like family ]
world teaches that mistakes are cause for punishment.
heaven teaches that mistakes are cause for grace.
world teaches that those who have failed deserve to be isolated.
heaven teaches that those who have failed must be embraced.
world teaches to self-protect.
heaven teaches selfless givenness to protect others.
world takes what makes sense to create masks to hide the mess.
heaven embraces the mess to create radical, illogical, reckless pieces of utter beauty.
because true love makes no sense.
robbing heaven to save a broken world is illogical at the least.
pursuing the shattered, hell-stained souls of mortals to save them, heal them, and wrap them in the graces of heaven is reckless.
you
did
not
come
to
self
protect
you
did
not
come
to
build
walls
you came to tear down our walls and use those bricks to build bridges.
you came to love the least, the dirtiest, the weakest, the most fallen apart of us.
you came to breathe starlight in the rich and the poor.
you came to breathe fullness into our emptiness.
and you will stop at nothing.
until every last orphan has become a child.
until every last child has felt the love of the Father.
this is heaven.
to love the least of them.
to love others as you have loved us.
to love and love and love until the threats of hell are silenced by the songs of heaven.
until our hurting has been rewired into healing.
until our broken hearts. mend each other.
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3 comments
I love it!!! It reminds me that God extended unconditional love to me, and now he wants ne to do the same to my fellow neighbor.
ReplyDeleteThere is often tension between our zeal for truth and our ability to love Christ-likely. The world is starved of authentic love; if truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive.
thanks Ashy!
<3<3<3 There is SO MUCH in this.
ReplyDeleteSuch evocative words!
ReplyDeleteSo what do you think? I love to hear from you!