relationship.

"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."  - C.S. Lewis

My dear friend Lisa always says, "Relationships are weird."  I am reminded these last few weeks of how true that is.  Not only are they weird, but they are hard.

People are so vastly different.  We all act differently, we think differently, and being around different people brings out varying facets of who we are.  We give our stories, our past, our dreams, our time and energy, and, most importantly, our emotions.  And in that revealing of who we are, we give ourselves, in small pieces, to those with whom we are in relationship.

Acquaintances, friendships, dating relationships, and family all require a person to give and to receive.  But then if and when those relationships end, well, those pieces of you go with the person who leaves.  It's strange.  And it hurts.  It happens when you move from one place to another, leaving behind relationships that will inevitably change with distance.  It happens when a dating relationship ends and that person will no longer ever be a part of your life.

We are made to be in relationship, and those things that make us known to the other are the very things that make us the most vulnerable.  Those are also the things easiest to withhold for fear of getting hurt.  So I withhold and my fears are validated when relationship ends.

Yet for the sake of my well-being long-term, it is time to relinquish that fear, give up the hurt and disappointment, and make myself vulnerable, but this time using better discernment to choose the receiving end.

As C.S. Lewis said, "your heart will certainly be wrung and broken", yet I know of a great healer who puts those pieces back together if the hurt is great, and even if it is small.  He is Healer, He is good, He is faithful, and my heart is whole and full.