Thursday’s Jewels: Love’s Risk

I love it when I stumble upon wordsthat quietly take up residence in my soul: a quote worth sharing, a question worth asking, a prayer worth repeating. I love it when another truth seeker’s reverent musings lift my thoughts above dirty diapers, dirty dishes and dirty laundry. I feel grateful when another seeker’s words chase me shamelessly to the Living Word. As the wise writer of Proverbs declares, “The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry…” (Proverbs 34:11).

I’m not sure Hallmark would have offered C.S. Lewis his own line of greeting cards, but his words remind me that even when love doesn’t feel like a greeting card moment, it is worth the effort.  

“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 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.…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” -C.S. Lewis