Fort Knox

Originally written on May 18, 2013

I read an article the other day and posted it twice because I thought it was so right on.  It was on guarding your heart.  I remember this being a big theme in college.  I attended Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio and the dating scene was super weird...I won't lie.  A girl could not look at a guy without him thinking she wanted to marry him and him either freaking out and running away as a result, or him relentlessly pursuing her for marriage, when, in reality, she was just trying to figure out if that was food on his face or a birthmark.  Oops.  

I credit this phenomena to the fact that there was such a strong emphasis on figuring out your vocation in life and going after it.  But somehow, we, the students, got it wrong.  And mind you, this is merely my experience of the culture of dating at this particular school.  Is it important to discern your vocation to religious life, marriage, or singledom?  Yes!  It is very important!  Why?  Because if you are not following God's plan for your life, you're going to end up hurting more people than you would have originally by just being a sinner.  Allow me to illustrate.  Boy feels called to religious life.  Boy ignores said call.  Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl start to date.  Six months later boy breaks up with girl because boy still feels called to religious life.  Boy goes to explore religious life as a possible vocation.  I saw this happen so many times.  While there is a place for dating in discernment, almost all of the cases I witnessed were completely and totally uncalled for.  The heartache could have and should have been prevented by one party altogether by being obedient to their conscience in the first place.  

So, what is the result?  The result is this really weird concept of not loving anyone until you meet the person you will marry.  And the result of that is people run around hurriedly trying to find said person.  Why?  Because we were made to love and have this innate desire to love.  When we aren't loving others we are empty and our lives lack meaning.  But because we are so afraid to get hurt again, we "guard our hearts" to avoid the heartbreak.  Then we develop this messed up idea that when we find "the one", we can breathe a sigh of relief as if we will never be hurt again.  It's just not true.

Working in a hospital and dealing very often with death, I literally have front row seats to watching people's hearts break.  Couples who have been married for 60+ years are holding hands awaiting their impending separation by death.  They tell me that they have learned to love this person so deeply over the years despite the fact that their spouse made them so crazy mad sometimes.  The biggest regret?  They wish they would have loved them more.  They wish they would have shown it more. They wish they would have forgiven earlier.  They never wish they would have guarded their hearts more to avoid this pain.  

I used to think that every time I loved a man, it would take away from the love I would eventually have for my spouse.  I thought I was giving a piece of my heart away and I wanted to save the whole thing for that one man.  Now I realize that God calls us to love everyone in front of us in every moment in the context of His great love for us.  But what if that means I will have my heart broken?  Our hearts will break.  One way or another.  There is no avoiding it, unless you build your heart up to be like Fort Knox.  

How many souls still treat Jesus with complete disregard, including ourselves, and yet he continues to carry his cross to Calvary and die.  This man made himself completely and totally vulnerable to the riffraff who would take advantage of him and who would even care very little for him.  He still died for every last one of us despite our indifference.  And his heart wasn't indifferent at all.  He was completely heartbroken.  Destroyed.

I think often we forget that love is a gift.  "We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19.  We are constantly looking for people who deserve our love.  I don't want you to love me because you feel like I deserve your love or have earned it.  If that's the case, then most assuredly, I can also lose it.  Love is a gift to be given freely to the Beloved regardless of whether or not love is returned.  I did read something somewhere once that we are to love always without expecting that love to be returned.  That is what it means to love like Jesus does.  Who are we to deprive others of the gift of love?

I think I'm the first person who needs to work on loving better.  I often try to decide who is worthy of my love and act accordingly.  The other day I was talking to my mom about different situations in which I felt people were taking advantage of me and how I was just going to cut off their friendship.  She responded, "You sure do put a lot of conditions on your unconditional love."  Oh snap!  That's not to say that one should allow themselves to be taken advantage of, but I can't control the behavior of others.  All I can do is make my heart right before God and choose to love others despite their behavior.  Isn't that really what we are called to do?  

Give it a try!  Open your heart with reckless abandon!  Love the people you usually hate.  Throw away your expectations.  You will be amazed at how quickly your heart will change!