C.S. Lewis on Love

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even 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. To love is to be vulnerable."


~C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves


I read this book this summer... it was so good, I wanted to just memorize everything in it. It is definitely one I will go back to and read again. C.S. Lewis has such a gift of explaining complicated things in a surprisingly uncomplicated way.

I Corinthians 13

Memorizing this was on my summer goals, and I finished it! I'm also almost half-way through my list of 20 books.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, 

but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, 

but have not love, 
I gain nothing. 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrong-doing, but rejoices with the truth. 

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. 

As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease;

 as for knowledge, it will pass away. 

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 

but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, 
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. 

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. 

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; 

but the greatest of these is love.

~Love~

Valentine's Day is this Sunday... so I decided to do a post on love.

Our culture says that romantic love is basically the most important thing... it's all you need, you won't be happy until you have it, etc. Yet it is also portrayed as a very inconstant thing. The majority of songs in many genres are about heartbreak--love that didn't last.

So it's the one thing you need in your life, but yet it is fleeting and inconstant?

Many love stories in songs, movies, and books are between two people who are completely obsessed with only each other. A girl is hopelessly in love with a boy, and she makes him her entire focus in life. He becomes a basically a god in her mind, and she thinks he is all she needs to be happy.

So guess what? When he lets her down, she is devastated because she has been essentially worshiping him. And I'm not saying this can only happen if she thinks he's perfect. You can make someone the focus of your life without thinking they are flawless.

In any kind of friendship, the people involved need to realize that the other person is human and will not always be there for them.

I remember in a Sunday school class several years ago, me and one of my friends were sitting with each other. Our teacher was talking about how every person in our life will let us down at some point, and that only God will always be faithful. Afterward my friend said, "You have never let me down!" Which was very sweet. :-) (She hadn't known me very long, LOL). And I remember thinking, "Not everyone will let me down."

Well... turns out, everyone did. And I'm sure I have let down my friend many times since then.

It seems like many of the love stories that are considered timeless, epic, etc, are really about two very selfish people who want to be together no matter what.

I think often, especially in romantic relationships, people want to be with the other person because it makes them feel good. "I want you because I want feel be comfortable, happy, and cared about." Obviously if both people are thinking in this way, it's not going to work out too well!

I believe the solution to these problems in relationships is realizing the fact that God should be the center of our lives, and our relationship with him will enable us to truly love others and not get things out of proportion. We all have the desire to be loved unconditionally, and unfailing. If we depend on people to give us the perfect love that only God can, we'll just end up bitter and disappointed.

Happy Valentine's Day!