Beloved

Here is a true test of love:

To want what is best for another. Even at your own expense, at the risk of your own heartbreak.

Who knew small children could cause such an ache. With their dirty faces and sticky hands, eyes deep and watery. They throw themselves in your arms or cower far away in the corner. In an instant your heart belongs to them.

I am threatening the next time I see a greasy, playful child, however, I am going to walk the other way. "No, thank you," I will say, holding up my hands and shaking my head. "No more. My heart doesn't have any more room. It's cracked and fragile and can't take any more breaking."

It's my own fault. I have yet to learn how to rationally detach. How to love and then walk away. How to wash my hands at the end of the day and go to bed with an unburdened mind. I have a lot to learn, and I'd better learn it quick. Because my heart's beginning to look like a patchwork quilt.

Tonight I am reminded how easy it is to love the lovable. As a Christ follower I am called to love those who require much more patience and grace. I am reminded how real love is sacrificial. Love is selfless. But despite those attributes, love does not always come without pain.

When the ones I love leave again... I fight the temptation to give up. I battle internally with the defeat and sorrow, which comes right along with empty arms.

I know He told me to take care of her and to love her. It breaks my heart to think I may have waited too long. Then, by His grace, I remember the first day I met her. Hiding in the corner of a sofa, sick and scared and neglected. I remember calling her over to me, feeling the swollen lymph nodes and noticing the deep uncertainty in her eyes.

My mind then races to the most recent time I saw her. She slipped her hand in mine. A mischievous, happy smile lit up her face. Somewhere along the way she had learned to trust me. Oh, how much easier it was for me to learn to love her.

I was told by our Father to take care of her. She was my burden, my gift. In an instant, however, she's gone again. My time with her was short and seemingly ineffective.

I am a transition person.

This is a lonely place to be. Most of the time I only get a little bit of time to love you.

Tonight my head knows the truth, but my heart can't grasp it yet. Tonight I'm tired and I wonder if I have what it takes.

What it takes to trust. To love unconditionally and without fear of loss. To want what is best for another, at the risk of my own heartbreak.