A couple of days ago, I laid on my bed, alone in the room, while the rain pattered onto the tin rooftops outside. My eyes stared into the grainy pattern of wooden slats of the bed above, and as I blinked, teardrops as hot as lava began flowing down my cheeks, settling as a reservoir in the creases and nooks of my neck and collarbone, some falling astray, saturating the pillow beneath.
I felt empty.
So tangible was my emptiness that I felt a physical hole carved out of my heart.
Daddy, I’ve given up everything.
Daddy, I’ve given up everything to follow you.
Daddy, I’ve given up everything to love deeper.
And it hurts.
It hurts to fall hard for You, and to love hard.
I laid there, waiting for release, waiting for the pain to settle,
The lump in my throat growing bigger, and the knots in my chest twisting like a wrung towel —
waiting for a rhyme, a reason, a response, and still, feeling nothing.
In the silence,
I heard two words:
“I know.”
An image of the cross flashed in my mind.
Was it love that you drew near to the lepers and the ailing left for dead?
Was it love that you turned the other cheek?
Was it love that you bestowed grace and worthiness upon the worthless?
Was it love that you were prosecuted by your own people?
Was it love that you bore that cross?
Was it love when your flesh was pierced?
Was it love when you gave everything?
It is love that you lack absolutely nothing, but you want me.
I want to love like you, Jesus.
I want to always love until it hurts.
