It’s Saturday evening. Darkness competes with us as we speed along asphalt roads. Behind us are tinted skies—pink and yellow hues bleeding into blue, kissing the barren, desert horizon. I’m lost in a world all my own, head turned back catching silhouettes as they darken in the last rays of the hidden sun. Thoughts speed. 

Is it more painful to never experience love—the giving and receiving of it—or is it more painful to experience love only for it to be taken from you?

I know deep inside it’s more painful to have a taste of love and it be taken away. Questions with answers I already know filter through my mind. 

Then is it worth it to love if it might one day be taken away? 

I think of people I know—people who have loved and lost, parents who have had to bury a young child, teenagers who have had to bury a parent. In my mind’s eye I see myself quietly asking these people: looking back, was it worth it to love and experience love knowing now that it would one day be gone too soon? 

My heart asks this question though I know deep in my soul, it’s a silly thing to ask. A silly thing to question because I already know the answer running wild through my veins. I know deep within that pain is not really my enemy anyway. 

Love is always worth the risk. 

It is something I have pondered once, and once again. A question I have let run its course through my blood, always and only to come back to the one answer that will never change: Love is always worth the risk. 

It is worth the risk of it being lost somewhere between hope and fear, worth the risk of it never being returned, worth the risk of it being rejected, worth the risk of losing it altogether. I think back to my younger self, remember the people in my life who have come and gone, the pain of letting each go their own way…perhaps never to meet again, the pain of looking into desperate eyes and knowing that this is the short time I have to give and to love—and then it’s gone. I think of the people in my life right now. All the hurting hearts, all the people crying for a taste of real, healing love. 

And it’s hours later that I step into the house, a place where people I love, people I’ve met, people whose blood is the same as mine have come and gone before me. I see traces of what once was and is now gone. Three times over, three unique stories, all in vastly different ways. I think of the energy, the heart that has been poured into loving brokenness, the mess of loving in that brokenness, the wounds, the exhaustion, the effort that seems wasted. But here too, if I pause for a moment, I will know, there is reward too. 

My heart is stilled as my fingers sweep over a stack of paintings that are shadows of the not-too-distant past. Sorrow catches my breath as I take in my surroundings, look into the eyes of each soul portrayed in memories hanging on the wall—sometimes the only thing left of this love. 

The pain of losing love may be deeper than the pain of closing one’s heart to love, but a heart that is broken from having known real love, though now it may be gone, is that much fuller, that much richer, has that much more understanding of the heart of God. 

This pain, the pain and the risk of love that is understood by the deepest souls—is a strange, yet beautiful thing. Because it is this pain that blends one’s heart with God’s, this pain that allows us to feel a piece of God’s heart, to see God’s heart. Because for Him too, love and life and pain cannot be separated. For Him too, it is always a risk to love. For Him too, He reels in the pain of love that has been forgotten, love that has broken hearts when it is taken away, love that has been rejected, unreturned, lost. Because He loves, He hurts. Though it was never meant to be this way, sometimes love hurts. 

It was love that finally took away Jesus’ last breath. Love that wounded His sensitive heart. But it was also LOVE that raised Him from the dead, love that made His heart beat once again, love that returned life through His veins to His heart. And for us too, it is, and always will be, love that pulls us up from the pit of despair, love that gives a purpose to our existence, love that compels our hearts to beat again, love that gives life to the soul. It is love that heals, love that inspires, love that changes a life.  

To close one’s heart to love in an effort to avoid pain depletes the soul of the very richness, the very depth we were created for. To suffocate one’s heart in an attempt to ‘be ok’ never really accomplishes that goal. Because a soul without love is a lifeless, empty being. Again, truth imprints itself on my mind.

Pain is not my enemy.

It is a hardened heart, and loveless life that is to be feared far more than a heart that hurts because it loved in a sinful world. Perhaps love hurts sometimes, but the joy found in loving and receiving love is not even comparable to the pain one may encounter along this journey. It is love that brings serenity, joy, hope. 

Yes, love is always worth the risk. 

And for Him too, there is ever only one answer in response to the question pressed upon the lips of every aching heart passing through some type of this pain. With unmistakable clarity, the answer comes, 

Forever and always, love is worth the risk.