Did I lose it?

 

That is one of my greatest fears.  I am not afraid of failing or of falling or of flailing… but I am afraid of losing my last chance.

 

Is it gone forever?  Was that the last time?

 

Logically, I know that the things that God intends to stay in my life will stay no matter what I do, but logic does not live here in this place.  My mind is consumed with fear that I would have squandered my final chance.

 

Will it ever come back?

 

Over the course of my life, I have grown very proficient in pushing people away.  Fear of being loved and fear of being rejected bundled themselves together to create a toxic virus that injected itself into all of my relationships.  There was no vaccine, there was no cure, only a death sentence and trouble every moment leading up to it.

 

In my issues, I pushed away or ran away from everything that would even begin to resemble true love.  I ran, because I knew that the pain of being left would never be greater than the joy of being loved.

 

When asked whether or not it was better to have loved and to have lost or to never have loved at all, I would always choose the latter.

 

I always chose the latter, because the cost of love never seemed to outweigh the compensation of love.

 

In other words, the pain that would result from the loss of love would always be greater than the reward of being loved.

 

So, because of that, I chose to never know love.

 

I didn’t stay in jobs or with families or in friendships that would ground me in love.  I ran from men and from marriage and from any possibility of a future with anyone so that I would never have to know the loss of love.

 

I ran, and now I’m wondering if it is too late to get it back.

 

Loss seemed inevitable.  Breakups and separations would eventually happen, and I didn’t want to be caught in heartbreak when they did.  I left people before they ever had a chance to leave me and I named myself lucky because of it.

 

I succeeded in that I never knew the loss of love, but I never knew love at all, so in so many more ways, I failed.

 

I failed because love is always worth it.

 

Love is always worth the risk.  It is always worth the cost.  Love will always be worth it, even if losing it is inevitable.

 

Love is always worth it, because Jesus is always worth it.

 

When we read 1st John 4:8, we are told that “God is love.” 

 

It’s not that God loves, or that He loves to be loved, but God is literally love.  He is the embodiment of love.  He is the creator and manufacturer of it— He lives it and moves it and breathes it—  He is characterized by it… but He is it.

 

He simply IS love.

 

God is love.

 

I couldn’t always tell you that love was worth the risk, but I could always tell you that Jesus was.  For such a long time, those two things were separate.  My broken and hurting heart was so very afraid of being broken again that I compartmentalized my personal life and kept it separate from my life with Jesus.

 

In fear of being hurt, I chose to not know love at all, which kept me from truly, deeply, knowing Jesus.

 

Because God is love, and because I had blocked out love from my life to keep me safe, I was stunted in my relationship with the Lord in a way that only surrender could fix.

 

Spiritual and relational ailments popped up, one right after another, all arising out of the shoddy foundation that I was laying.  I was incapable of truly loving or truly being loved, because I didn’t know true Love at all.  Love was a person who was standing right in front of me, but my fear of loss kept me from ever truly connecting with Him.

 

My fears of abandonment and rejection kept me from knowing God and knowing His love for years.  Not knowing God’s love left me incapable of knowing how to love others or knowing how to be loved.

 

So often, we go through life with our trauma pinned to our chest, wearing it on the outside so that it is the first thing that people interact with.  We are caught between wanting to scare off those who want to love us and wanting them to stay and fight for us so that we know we’re worth it.

 

But what we don’t realize, what I didn’t realize, was that, by pushing away those who seek to love us, we’re actually pushing the Father away as well.

 

I am not married, but I know full and well that there is an aspect of God that I will never know unless I find a husband.  I don’t have children, but I know that I will miss out on a piece of God if I choose to never have them.  We encounter and experience God through our encounters and experiences, so when we choose to experience something, we’re actively choosing to experience God in a new way.

 

By running in fear away from love— be it the love of a family or a friend or future spouse— we are actively running from entering into deeper relationship with the Lord.

 

But the logic behind all of that still wasn’t enough to soothe my heart to stay.

 

I’ve never been fond of risk.  I like guarantees.  I like definite outcomes and I like to know what is coming.

 

In situations of possibility, I run.  Even when the outcomes look good, the fear of them turning bad keeps me from investing.  To say that I’m not a gambler would be an understatement.

 

I used to defend my fearfulness.  “I don’t gamble… that’s a good thing.”  “I don’t take risks because I’m not reckless.”  “I don’t bet on things that are uncertain— I only give myself to things that are sure.”

 

I used to defend myself by hiding behind the guise of wisdom, when truly, I was nothing more than a coward.

 

I was a coward, because I only believed in things that I could see and feel and touch and know— which left no room for faith in Jesus to come and dwell.

 

Because I was so afraid of the risk of loss, I unknowingly set aside the possibility of faith, all because faith is the assurance of things unknown and unseen.

 

By marking off love and claiming that never knowing loss was better than ever knowing love that could be lost, I distanced myself from God.

 

In an effort to be separate from people and the pain that they could possibly bring, I became separated from God.

 

It took moments of great depression and great loneliness for me to realize.  It took the lowest of lows and periods of great longing for me to understand.  It is always better to gamble for love than it is to be safe without it.

 

I wasn’t protecting myself. I wasn’t protecting myself. I wasn’t protecting myself.

 

I thought that I was protecting myself by keeping my heart from knowing love, but I wasn’t protecting myself.

 

I thought that, by keeping myself away from others and from love, I would never get hurt.  But in moments of clarity, I realize that I hurt myself more in that process that I would have any other way.

 

I thought that, by refusing to put myself in situations where loss was possible, that I’d never lose, but now, I recognize that I have lost much more in the battle to avoid loss than I ever would have if I would have just stepped into the risk of love.

 

Now, with dead relationships and broken hearts littering the path behind me, I see a clear and open path laid bare before me if I just choose the risk.

 

We all have the choice.  Would we rather know love— the true and earnest love of God, lived out through faith and through His people— and “risk” the loss of it, or would we rather never truly experience the love of a Father or a Friend?

 

Would you… would I… would we choose the risk?  Would we lay down fear of loss for the hope of love?  Would we abandon petty insecurities and silly anxieties that convince us that losing is the worst outcome?

 

It’ s not truly a risk, because God’s love for us is unending and unwavering.  It feels like a risk though, because our minds tell us that love is conditional and that it leaves in times of trouble.  It’s not a risk, but it feels like a risk.  Would we abandon the feeling of risk for the certainty of love?

 

As I have aged, I have learned that you can recover from lost love, but I have also learned that you can never recover from a love that you have never known.

 

We are all given the exact same choice:

 

Do we choose love with the risk of losing it, or do we choose solitude and a life lived away from the one thing that truly matters?

 

While I cannot make your decision for you, I can make it for me, and I choose love.

 

I choose to love others fully— boldly and brazenly and unafraid— because loving them, even if only for a moment, will be worth any pain that might come through loss.

 

I choose to be loved fully— wildly and passionately and completely— because to even be kissed by the breath of love itself is far sweeter than perceived safety in solitude.

 

From now on, I choose Love— love the person, love acted out, love who died on the cross—because He deemed that I was worth choosing on that day two thousand years ago.

 

From now on, my heart will know that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.  Because from now on, I will see the cross in every piece of love that floats my way.

 

No more running, no more denying, only living in the presence of Love from here on out.