Her generosity was the conditional kind. She gave herself over and over again, but only until she felt threatened. Then whatever she had given, she wanted back. It probably had something to do with control. She wanted to feel in control over how much things affected her. She wanted to trust, just not all the time. She wanted to give herself away, just not all of her.
It came back to trust.
But in trust, the gift and the burden are one and the same. Trust invests in something that can't be seen; almost like faith, but different... it's the embracing of both a blessing and a curse. She had written, read and talked a lot about trust. She had trusted and not trusted. She had been held there and left hanging. But maybe trust is a lot less complex than people think. Maybe it really came down to the moments, the ones at 1 a.m. when he said that he loved her, but this is something we just can’t talk about right now, or when he promised that things would get better, that they wouldn't always look this way, when he promised he would come back and things wouldn't change. It’s in those moments, that trust would have looked through and seen a bigger picture.
Love involves trust. Trust involves risk. There is no other option. She can't walk a ways, find where the road gets uncomfortable, draw a line and say, I will only love him this far. No… love risks, love gets uncomfortable, love takes those chances. Love hopes, believes and endures.
People talk about forever. And they pray hard. Because deep down inside, doesn't everyone know that hearts break every day, that things are fragile, that many of them end in this life?
Hadn't she already jumped off this cliff, already made the movement of faith... the one that took her past a point of no return? Turning around and trying to rebuild the bridges she burned behind her, the ones she could have escaped on, it only hurt them both. Maybe she isn't through running back to the bridges. She just realized they've never been her friends.
Did it really matter that circumstances were difficult? Why shouldn’t they be? People hope for health and love and a happy ending. But in the end, our lives are not our own. Her life was only hers to give away. To God, to the people she loves, to him. Over and over again.
So she keeps on loving. She keeps giving herself back to him. She stops trying to figure out how to apologize to him for something she keeps coming back to... she just comes back. She hopes, believes, endures. She chooses to look through and see a bigger picture.
She stops, she becomes small, she loves.
Learns to love.
It came back to trust.
But in trust, the gift and the burden are one and the same. Trust invests in something that can't be seen; almost like faith, but different... it's the embracing of both a blessing and a curse. She had written, read and talked a lot about trust. She had trusted and not trusted. She had been held there and left hanging. But maybe trust is a lot less complex than people think. Maybe it really came down to the moments, the ones at 1 a.m. when he said that he loved her, but this is something we just can’t talk about right now, or when he promised that things would get better, that they wouldn't always look this way, when he promised he would come back and things wouldn't change. It’s in those moments, that trust would have looked through and seen a bigger picture.
Love involves trust. Trust involves risk. There is no other option. She can't walk a ways, find where the road gets uncomfortable, draw a line and say, I will only love him this far. No… love risks, love gets uncomfortable, love takes those chances. Love hopes, believes and endures.
People talk about forever. And they pray hard. Because deep down inside, doesn't everyone know that hearts break every day, that things are fragile, that many of them end in this life?
Hadn't she already jumped off this cliff, already made the movement of faith... the one that took her past a point of no return? Turning around and trying to rebuild the bridges she burned behind her, the ones she could have escaped on, it only hurt them both. Maybe she isn't through running back to the bridges. She just realized they've never been her friends.
Did it really matter that circumstances were difficult? Why shouldn’t they be? People hope for health and love and a happy ending. But in the end, our lives are not our own. Her life was only hers to give away. To God, to the people she loves, to him. Over and over again.
So she keeps on loving. She keeps giving herself back to him. She stops trying to figure out how to apologize to him for something she keeps coming back to... she just comes back. She hopes, believes, endures. She chooses to look through and see a bigger picture.
She stops, she becomes small, she loves.
Learns to love.