After you've been hurt, betrayed, used, rejected, abandoned, or deceived in a relationship (whether by family members, friends, or significant others), it's common to want to protect yourself by withdrawing. You think it will protect you from future pain. However, if you choose that route you will lose more than the equivalent of whatever future pain there may be. You'll become a shell of a person, either avoiding or rejecting others; or hurting and using others cold-heartedly. As someone who has been there, I encourage you to keep investing in love, God's way. Because, you see, there is a beautiful paradox where true godly love is concerned. That same love that is implanted in the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit, and which is nurtured by sacrificial obedience to God's word, will make you vulnerable to heartache, but it is also a healing balm.
A commitment to godly love protects your heart from the defilement of bitterness or destructive tendencies. Such defilement usually accompanies heartache when the relationship that was broken was built only upon a worldly passion, or an unreasonable and self-centered devotion. True, godly, love even when met with heartache will draw out Christlikeness in your own character - a fragrance of mercy, forgiveness, and faithfulness. And it preserves tenderness and compassion in your heart to invest in other, or future, relationships.
Your heart will be wounded in this world. Christ's heart was wounded because He loved. He came to His own who did not receive Him. He was mocked, scorned and struck by those He was suffering for; despised and rejected by those He loved; betrayed by a friend; denied by a close companion (see John 1:10-11; Isaiah 53:1-12; Ephesians 2:4-7). But Jesus loved anyway. Even upon the cross, in the excruciating pain of the last moments of His earthly life, He made intercession for those who crucified Him. No, not all who He loves did, or will, love Him in return, but there are those who do. They love Him because He first loved them (1 John 4:19), and they have sealed and proved their love with their own blood, or have suffered the loss of all worldly things for His sake. His love paved the way for others to be able to love Him, and one another, with this other-worldly, overcoming love.
In the same way, despite the wounding you've suffered, if you keep looking to God to be your Source and Chief Joy, and stay committed to loving with His love, He will place others who are also being transformed by His love into your life. The richness you will experience from these new relationships will be amplified because of the depth of character you gained in your willingness to love, show mercy, compassion, and forgive even when others hurt you. Remember "love suffers long", and "love never ends". "And now faith, hope, love, these three remain; but the greatest of these is love" (see 1 Corinthians 13). I know it hurts now, but love will also be your healing balm. Love will reap eternal relationships, and rewards. Love anyway.
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. - Mother Teresa
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