courage to 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, The Four Loves 


I pray always for the strength to be vulnerable, the courage to love with abandon, knowing full well that my reward may be heartbreak. That is unconditional love, that is the cross, that is Christ who died for those He foreknew would reject Him, would walk away from the love-adoption He offered. That is the naked vulnerable heart of the Creator of the universe placed in my hands. 
Oh give me grace to love like that.