To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
– C.S. Lewis
Entering middle school I was perfect. I was part of a wonderful friend group, secure in my identity, and eagerly embraced the multitude of new social and academic challenges of my sixth grade year.
The bell rings, startling me out of my third period nap and slapping me back into my pimply, insecure reality. This is sixth grade; friends are a mystery and I have little self esteem or direction. Welcome to middle school.
A few months into this new reality, two friends from elementary school invite me to their youth group. I half listen to their description.
“Worship… blah… sermon… blah… small groups… blah… DODGEBALL”
“I’m in.” I say. They tell me it’s on Wednesday nights and gave me the name of their church: McBic.
Wednesday rolls around and my mom drops me off at the small double doors in back of the church, yelling,
“Have fun! Make some friends!”
I’m too busy racing down the hall to hear her. I burst into the gym, hopping into a game already in progress. Unbeknownst to me, on the other team stood a dodgeball legend; a youth leader in his twenties. To 13 year olds he was Goliath reincarnated and placed on a dodgeball court.
Not knowing anything about anything, I immediately ran straight up to the midline separating the two teams, lacking both a ball and any semblance of a plan. I looked behind me to see my entire team crowding the back wall, still blissfully unaware my impending doom. I twisted my head back towards the opposing team, just in time to see a red circle. Half a second later I realized the red circle was a kickball moving incredibly fast towards my head and OH My GOS-
I regained consciousness a minute later. I lay on the rough carpeting of the gym floor and looked around to see that my body had been dragged to the side line to prevent me from interfering with the rest of the game. From that moment on I was hooked. I came to youth group without fail every single week. (Later that year the youth group banned us from playing with kickballs claiming, I promise you I’m not making this up, too many people had broken their arms.)
During the Wednesday and Sunday nights of the following seven years, I met the people I love most in the world. My small group leader turned into my mentor, a man who showed me what it means to chase after God’s heart. I met a kid who became my best friend, and today holds more of my heart than anyone in my life. My small group, youth pastors, leaders, and friends taught me more about the love of Christ than I could hope to write in a thousand of these blog posts.
There are others too. My extended family, whom I cherish. The family friends who helped raise me. All the wonderful people at SnL who drive me to seek deeper intimacy with God. And most importantly, the mother who shouts encouragements as her son runs off towards his next adventure, and the father who taught him to tell stories about the grace of God.
It is impossible for me to fully express my thanks on these pages, so I won’t try. Instead I will say this: I know I am still filled with the ignorance that so clearly marks youth, however as I look towards this coming journey it’s difficult for me to see a hardship surpassing that of leaving behind the people I have grown to hold so dear.
There will be new friends. New mentors and memories and people to love. But they will not dull the ache of my heart to see their faces as I sit, staring at unfamiliar starts halfway around the world.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.”
I am so grateful to know a love which breaks by heart.
