Have we loved?

We were seated round this table in a restaurant on a beautiful evening. The food was good but, I confess, the conversation was better. I mean, when it comes to these minds and them put together to discuss matters of the heart, I felt like the restaurant should be the one paying us instead.

If you know me, you know I have opinions. But I was silently munching down my food as though I was starving. I wasn’t. Finally, someone says, “Daisy your silence is a point waiting to be dropped heavy. “ ( Or something along those lines). He was wrong. I was just tired of mere talk. I still am.

I’ve been in so many spaces, voiced so many opinions on this. The accolades that follow voicing profound points are inviting but now my integrity forbids it. We may be deceived to thinking that merely because we have talked about love, that we have loved. And of the guilty, I am chief. This is my frail attempt at our redemption:

C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “To love at all is to be vulnerable.” He then proceeds to say, “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.“

The older I get, the more the magnitude of this sets in and in all honesty, the more I realize how unwilling I am to love. My heart wrung? Broken? I’m not in for that stuff. But really, who is? And thus so few have loved.

I know you’re reading this and because of your sorority of friends, family, partner; you number yourself among the few. But I bid you to reexamine. We are seldom bold enough to completely write off relationships because deep down we know that we need them. But we dip our feet only to safe depths that should a storm start we can beat a hasty retreat.

So we can post selfies with catchy captions, attend events together, buy them gifts. But can you call them up during an anxiety attack? Do they know you feel like you’re failing? Can they hold you while you cry? We share everything except everything that really matters. We have our hearts tucked away. And if we’re bold enough to even acknowledge it we manage our need of vulnerability with therapy or the false religion that claims that having Jesus means we don’t need people. We forget that the second greatest commandment is:

KJV Matthew 22
39 …Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

If to love at all is to be vulnerable, then have we really loved?

My whole life hinges on the fact that I am a Christian. But, you see, being a Christian is synonymous to loving: God supremely, humanity impartially. We live to love.

I’m not a ‘New Year Resolutions’ enthusiast, but this year, I acknowledge and appreciate the catapult it offers to instigate change. I am choosing to be appropriately vulnerable this year. I am choosing to love. I am choosing to be like Jesus. I am choosing to be a Christian. And all these things are synonymous. Care to join me?

I then shall live as one who’s learned compassion.
I’ve been so loved, that I’ll risk loving too.
I know how fear builds walls instead of bridges;
I’ll dare to see another’s point of view.
And when relationships demand commitment,
Then I’ll be there to care and follow through.

So help me(us?) God!