Externally Processing My Way Through Life

My friend put this quote on her blog:

"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 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--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." --c.s. lewis

I love this quote. For many reasons, but for one in particular.

I didn't have the most healthy of love relationships modeled to me as I was growing up. The thought of really loving someone, let alone trusting someone enough to consider marrying them scared the crap out of me.

I realize some people aren't big advocates of the idea of knowing right away when you meet someone that they are "the one", but I am. Within weeks of dating Chris and I knew where our relationship was headed. In fact we were in the midst of filling out our STINT (short term international, our trip to Ukraine) applications, and it asked if we were in a serious relationship that we saw ending in marriage. A little awkward that soon, but we had to talk about what we were going to put.

Right before the conversation I started freaking out. I knew that was where my heart was headed if let it, but I also knew the potential heart break and pain that could ensue if I let it go there, and I hadn't made up my mind I wanted it to go there yet. Fear gripped me.

I called my BFF. She's so smart, and always there. In college we used to call each other at 3am if there was a crisis. This was not 3am, but it was a crisis. Being the smart person she is, and a reader of theologians like C.S. Lewis which I love her for, she busted this quote out on me. I know it was a God thing that He had her reading it, and that she could give it to me. It rocked my world at that point. There was so much that I wasn't willing to be vulnerable with and God exposed my heart for what it was. Cold.

That quote helped me to open my heart to God, and to the most amazing man I get to call my husband. I realized my lack of vulnerability, and in turn my lack of love. I saw relationships (not just with Chris, but friends) that I wasn't being vulnerable in, in how I served, in how I shared, in how I led.

It still brings tears to my eyes when I read it now. I always want to strive to be vulnerable, at whatever the cost, because when I am vulnerable is when love (God) can be seen.