Love hurts

God is love (1 John 4:8).

Love hurts.  Just ask Romeo and Juliet—they committed suicide because the pain of living apart from each other was just too much to bear.  Love hurts.  Just ask the mother who works three jobs to feed her children and make sure they can have medical care when they get sick.  Love hurts.  Just ask the man who swallows his pride and takes his wife back after she admits to cheating on him with the man who was his oldest friend.

Love shouldn’t hurt.  Love should be promises kept and dreams fulfilled.  Love should be days in the sunshine and nights spent at ease.  Love should be pleasant conversations and warm embraces.  Love shouldn’t be marred with harsh words and secrets betrayed.  Love shouldn’t be darkened with selfishness or pride.  Love should not be interrupted by misplaced priorities or the separation of death.  Love shouldn’t hurt.

The only reason that love hurts is because we are flawed.  We don’t love as we should because we are lazy, impulsive, greedy, and lack self-control.  We don’t experience love as we should because we are selfish and self-absorbed, we have cravings that are dark and sick that no one should be expected to put up with.  We have a twisted idea of what relationships should be, putting unreasonable pressure on others to make us happy.  Because we are corrupt, God had to put a limit on our ability to inflict harm—every sinful life eventually ends in death.

God is love.  He created us to love as He first loved us.  But since we are failures at loving as we should, the Lord God Almighty sent His Son to show us the full extent of His love.  Jesus is God’s love cast in human form, a love that came to earth where He reshaped our relationships with God and each other. 

Love should not hurt—yet the Son of God was hurt terribly because of His love for us.  On the cross He suffered for every time we betrayed a trust, told a lie, or broke a promise.  As He died, the Savior paid for every time we caused pain or fear or anger instead of showing kindness.  But when it was all over, Christ rose from the dead to guide us in a new way of living life and relating to each other.  He offers us love that doesn’t hurt, love that warms the heart forever.