Why does love break?
Because I'd said before, I told it to my parents, what I'd been thinking for months now: Everything I touch shatters. The friendships, the love, the relationships, community, everything. Everything breaks, sooner or later, when I've touched it.
Why? All I did was love them. All I did was care. And it shatters. Time and time and time again, it breaks. Is it worth it, to keep loving? Is it right, to keep reaching out, when it will only cause them worse pain later? (And that's not even counting what it does to me.)
So my feet pound the trail and my heart pounds questions. The trail slopes downward and I break to a walk to save my knees. My prayer drifts out, mist into mist. "Why, God?"
And just like that, there's an answer that stops me cold; my feet freeze in the trail and I grab the nearest tree and hang on, like the force of the thought might knock me over if I'm not careful.
Love always shatters.
Always?
Always, on earth. Because Love will always be colliding with evil. And that causes shattering.
The lyrics of a song drift into my head: "Love's like an ocean..."
Those waves--they roll on and on across the deep, strong but peaceful, gentle--until they reach the shore. That wave breaking, it can break you, it can kill you, it can drive you under, make you feel you're drowning. But it's not the wave that does that. It's the wave breaking. Striking the rock. Clashing with something completely opposite to itself.
Like Love. Like Love always is, always will be, as long as there is evil in the world.
Love's collision will break others, will break itself, will create a million pieces out of things that looked whole. But the only alternative is to abandon Love and choose evil. Because there is no middle ground, no safe walled-in place, not in this case.
And perhaps, as we choose, it's worthy to remember that sometimes, breaking is the only way to healing.
