Love's Victory Over Suffering

February is LOVE month. As we shop in the stores, red carries over from Christmas with products illuminating love’s red palette as a reminder to spend money for that oh so special Valentine.

I personally received my unexpected engagement ring gift on the eve of February 14th. I vividly remember my officer and a gentleman entering my dorm room apartment as I refocused my attention on a pending project for college graduation. Suddenly, I felt him kneeling beside me, and I looked down to my right to discover him kneeling on one knee in his formal military uniform presenting a little black box to me with a smile and his soft emerald eyes. Our love was pure and passionate. It was typical young love, but it later died and fell prey to addiction. However, the memory of feelings I felt at that moment will live on forever in my heart.

Unfortunately for some, Valentine’s Day is a painful reminder of past relationship hurts, whether personal or romantic. What once WAS is now erased as human love intersects suffering from the pain of brokenness. As we then attempt to safeguard our hearts, we are confused and burdened to discern which loves are safe, secure, and everlasting. And with each sting, we abstain from love entirely or instead, seek acceptance in all the wrong places. As the old adage says, LOVE HURTS!

As humans, we inherently seek, share, and flourish in love as creations of God’s image which represents love in its purest, most sacrificial form. Yet, the world continues to struggle to find true love with enduring acceptance. For example;

Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines love as:

• A desire or physical attraction

• Affection based on admiration

• An attachment or devotion

• An adoration

• To cherish

These definitions characterize a feeling that is very real, expressed through thoughts, words, actions and gifts, or devotions of time or money. While meaningful, heartfelt feelings can be conditional and subject to change. In a world where we are innately wired to seek love and acceptance, false loves can also yield the ultimate pain of harm and rejection, lost identity, or emotional trauma that exchange our thunder, purpose, and joy for a lifetime of insecurity and burden.

So why would a loving God allow us to suffer the risks of a bond He inherently created for us to flourish? This is the ultimate question, but it is through the suffering journey that we finally discover true love in its purest form as He lifts us down from His cross where love intersects pain and introduces us to our new life of strength and purpose.

It is through success that I’ve produced independence, but it is through pain that my progress has been refined. Bruising and brokenness are pain’s inflictions, but not barriers because the next chapter holds miracles. From the bible’s first chapter to its end, we are guaranteed loss and anguish in this life. However, it is through our journey of perseverance and faith that we find God’s comfort, healing, and a renewed purpose. He holds us and molds us into new creations of wisdom and strength with new visions of hope. And throughout our pain, He loves us unconditionally and infinitely, and we too find this love in our newness, purposeful in Him to help others through their pain and trauma.

Quote of Reflection

God whispers to us in our pleasures,

speaks in our consciences,

but shouts in our pains.

― C.S. Lewis