Good day, Purposeful Hearts! Welcome to our next series, “Relationship Reflection”, in which I give you specific quotes, ideas, theories, or models to use to gauge the health of your current significant relationships.
This week, I’m asking all Purposeful Hearts to ponder the following quote from C. S. Lewis: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even 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. To love is to be vulnerable.”
That quote grips my heart from so many angles! Clearly the key word that Lewis is asking us to embrace in our relationships is vulnerability – the willingness to let the people we’re closest to really see the core of our being. It’s admitting flaws, facing fears, sharing brokenness, revealing weakness, offering silliness to each other and trusting that the other person will stand by your side through each and every challenge.
Vulnerability is a big ask in a society that prizes individualism, personal achievement, toughness, strength, independence, and “having it all together”. Isn’t it often at the forefront of our minds to make it through each day with some level of productivity and our dignity intact? While all of that sounds admirable, it leads to an empty life if we don’t have anyone to share the ups and downs with. An overly ambitious (self-seeking) life that’s devoid of true, vulnerable, relational connections results in the impenetrable heart shielded by the casket of defense mechanisms, distractions, and busyness for busyness’ sake. It’s a dead place.
Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable broadens the potential emotional spectrum of our lives. Instead of self-focused maintenance, being vulnerable opens us to experience the wild highs of deep love, shared laughter, cozy snuggles, and endless adventures and the lows of relational conflict and the possibility of losing the ones you love. Every relationship runs the risk of loss – even those relationships we form with our pets – and every loss hurts.
Every once in a while, I’ll look at my two chocolate labs and think, “Why did I let you into my home and my heart? I’m just asking myself to take on two more losses in my life!” Have you ever thought something similar? Whenever this thought crosses my mind, I quickly refute myself. Would I trade a protected and loss-free existence for all of the cute puppy moments, the snuggles, the playtime, the walks, and all their quirks? Not a chance.
I can have similar thoughts about the fact that I remarried after my first husband died of cancer. Aren’t I just asking for another loss? Yes, but not today. Today I will remain vulnerable and share my heart with him. God has brought us together for so many awesome reasons, and I’m fully invested in the story He’s writing in our lives – ups, downs, highs, lows, risk, and reward.
What about you? Where do your own thoughts go when contemplating this week’s Relationship Reflection?
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