Love is.

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 "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be 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 around with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or the 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. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell."c.s.lewis in The Four Loves

This quote. 

Let me say, I hate the vulnerable word. It hurts. It reaches deep inside me and squeezes my heart. And this quote says it exactly. 

Loving scares me. I am afraid of love. God loves me, and He has been working in my heart. When I was in Greece this summer, I felt His love in an almost tangible way. He answered the cry of my heart -- that of wanting to love the people I was with. I knew I couldn't possibly love them, in the short month I was there. But God opened my heart, and I had the best month of my life. 

Yes, I felt vulnerable. Yes, it hurt. It hurt to see the people I love suffering, it hurt to not be able to heal them, it hurt to leave. My heart was cracked open, and it hurt. But it was beautiful. God is more! God is love! He fills my heart, even as love is seeping out of my heart, and leaving my heart empty. 

I am learning that to love is beautiful. To break down your walls is freedom. To connect is the reason we are here. To listen, to share, to care. If it weren't for love, nothing would be worth it. Love is the reason. Love makes it worth.

Does that mean I'm not afraid any longer? I am afraid, because love is unpredictable. I don't know what to expect. Because loving people sometimes means doing radical, crazy things. Things you wouldn't do on a normal basis. I am afraid, because my heart tells me different things than my mind. My heart is alive, and feels free, but my mind is cautioning me, be careful. And I want to follow my heart, and feel love, and be fearless, but there is a battle going on between that, and my mind.

Love is worth the risk.

I am trying to believe.

Savior of all People

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She shakes her head, and points to her son. "He likes to fight. It's not good. I try to tell him not to, but he is always fighting." Her young eyes look pained. Her husband died two years ago, and the only reason she has left to live is for her eleven year old son. And here in camp, he is always causing her grief.

The six year old is sobbing and shaking. Her mother has just beaten her, and she is scared and upset. We hold her, and try to comfort her. She doesn't want to go back to her house, but we need to take her. The mother takes her from our arms, laughing.

He comes running behind me, and kicks me in the shins. I turn around for a hug, but he withdraws, and grins mischievously. Everyone, including his mother, calls him Crazy, and it is easy to see why. When the other children high-five and hug as a greeting, he throws punches and kicks violently. But he has seen way more than a six year old should have to see. He has seen blood, war, bodies. He has experienced a traumatic boat ride, he has hid from whistling bullets, he lost his father, and he has lived in a camp with 2500 other people for four months.

Everywhere I look, I see pain. I see sad eyes. I see tears. I see chaos and imprisonment and binding powers. I feel oppression and depression and darkness.

But God is a God of miracles. He is the Healer of broken hearts. He can restore. He knows what pain is, and he brings peace. He provides a future -- He is the future. He is a Redeemer. I choose to believe in my God, because I know He is a miracle-worker.

One Reason

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I watched him sitting against the concrete wall. Wearing his usual faded hat, stretched t-shirt, and green shorts, he stared past my face, with a distant look in his eyes. I studied his young face, and wondered who he would be if he were still in Syria. He mumbled something, and I asked, "What did you say?" He came back to the present, to the refugee camp, to his hopeless life, to his monotonous day. "It would just have been better if we would all have died in Syria," he said, a little louder this time.

My heart jumped when I realized what he said, and that he meant it. I didn't know what to say, but he wasn't expecting a reply. I heard his younger brother coming around the corner, yelling my name. I smiled and hugged him, then took his even younger brother in my arms. The 4 year old snuggled in my arms and giggled as I held him.

Yes, you are here for a reason. God created you, and when He did, He had a specific purpose for doing so. He created you to live, not die. Not to die in Syria, not to die in the Aegean Sea, not to die in eternity. You were created to live.

Yes, Moria seems like hell. Yes, it seems hopeless. When looking for freedom, this is the last place you want, next to the place you came from.

But if you would have died in Syria, you would never have seen God. You would never have seen the love of God on display. You would not have seen people of God, serving, giving, loving like Jesus taught.

This is a big enough reason to be here in this horrible, awful prison. So you can find freedom in your heart. Peace and freedom that comes only from Jesus, the Messiah, in your heart.

War Zone

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He used to be strong. Everyday, he built houses. Frame upon frame, wall after wall, laying upon a foundation. He would go home, kiss his wife, and eat the supper she provided. He never liked to sit around much, so he would stay busy outside until the light would leave.

And now? Now he lies in his tent, watching movies. He collects bottle caps, and makes a game of checkers. The furthest he's walked today -- in the last month, really -- was to get his meal of peas and carrots and soup. He would sleep, but he knows from experience that one can only sleep so much in a day. He wishes he could close his eyes and forget everything he's seen and heard in his lifetime. He would even be willing to lose the memory of the good, if it meant not seeing the bad anymore.

She sits quietly outside her house. Her eyes follow the movements of the baby who lives next door, but her mind is back in Afghanistan. Where she used to be the life of the party. She had friends all around her, and a few of them were true friends -- the kind she shared everything with.

And now? She is lonely, and says she has no friends. She hates a few people, but she has no one to love. When you ask her, she says she has four friends -- but she hasn't seen any of them since they left her to go back to America.

You can feel the hopelessness. The hurt. Look in their eyes, and tell me you can't see it. Tell me you can't feel it in your own heart. We desperately need a Healer to heal our hearts.

The Tears of the Children

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He is sobbing. He hugs his knees and wails. "I miss my mom. I just want my mom." I hug him. He says, "She isn't coming back. She has to work and isn't home. I hate it. I Hate It."
I rub his back. I squeeze his finger. "She will come back. She loves you, because you're her son."
His sobbing quietly continues. I want to take him home, and never let him see hurt again. I want to protect his heart from the world. "We're almost home. It will be ok."
"But she's not at home! I just want my mom!" He sobs into his knees, realizing that home is no longer.
"I am sorry. It will be ok. She still loves you." I hold him, quietly crying with him.
Jesus says, "Bring him to me. I will carry him. I will heal him. I will wipe his tears away, giving him hope and love instead of sadness. I will show him what love is, and how to fill the hole in his heart."
Jesus, please protect his heart. Hold him in your hand, as you have promised.

Worth the People

I have been thinking about relationships. Are they really worth it?
They say the closer someone is to you, the easier it is to get hurt. And I know this. You don't have to have a broken relationship to find this out.
So why do we all do it? It hurts. Why do we make ourselves vulnerable to the pain in our hearts? Relationships are beautiful. Through them I have been encouraged, I have grown, I have learned. But sometimes I wonder.
Why do I pursue relationships that are fading? Why do I keep contact with a friend, knowing that in the end, it will come to nothing? Why do I keep calling someone to talk, when we both know that our relationship is going nowhere? Why do I even try to connect with a friend, when I know that it's more work than it's worth?
It hurts when you're so close to someone, you feel everything. The worst part is when they have no idea how they might be hurting you, and you don't have the heart to tell them.
Relationships are hard. They take work and time and effort, and that's not easy. So why do so many people spend their entire lives pursuing relationships?

My Creation

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They ask me what I do. I tell them I create. I create art. My favorite art is painting. I will let you judge how good I am. I love the paintings I create, but then again, I am the painter. Some are prettier than others. Some are dark and eerie. Some are a little flawed. But I think each one is beautiful. I create different masterpieces. Never have I made any one the same. I think they are more beautiful this way, and it makes them more special and valuable.
I love my paintings. Every single one of them, even though some seem more beautiful than others. To me, they are all of the same value, and they are all special. I don't care how ugly or how boring it looks to others, but I think it is valuable, because I made it.
I don't love my paintings because of anything they have done, how they look, how valuable they are to others, or what they are used for. I love them, because I created them. I designed them exactly like I wanted them. I made them perfect in my plan, so I love them. Nothing they could ever do would make me love them less.
My paintings are the favorite part of art for me. But I create other art as well. Like sculpting. I also sculpted the universe. But my paintings are the most special to me.