Charity, Love, Suffering

The chapter on Charity in The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis really makes one think. The section below is taken from page 170 and hit home. I am sure every person who has read this chapter has felt them touch it in some way. In college, I remember people who would get in arguments about the most meaningful section in this chapter because they would often each find varying passages to be their favorite.

I also like the section that begins one page before on how we must be open to being vulnerable and harmed when we open our heart; we will be hurt (personal experience agrees). Otherwise, he says, to keep it from being broken we must put our heart away in a "casket"; "it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. . . . The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." ---Wow, so much for being safe and for "feeling in love." But I digress, again. Back to the section:

We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the suffering inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and he chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.

It remains certainly true that all natural loves can be inordinate. Inordinate does not mean "insufficiently cautious." Nor does it mean "too big." It is not a quantitative term. It is probably impossible to love any human being simply "too much." We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinancy. But even this must be refined upon. Otherwise we shall trouble some who are very much on the right road but alarmed because they cannot feel towards God so warm a sensible emotion as they feel for the earthly Beloved. It is much to be wished--at least I think so--that we all, at all times, could. We must pray that this gift should be given to us.

~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 170

I have a feeling that curing me of my belief that I was "independent" or "self-sufficient" were reasons behind my own heartaches. I'm sure each person has their own story. I truly hope that I have learned to Love God more through my own sufferings (and that each of you have as well). Otherwise, the pain was for nought.