Love hurts.



Well, that's one way of looking at it.



My mother was ill a long time.



When at home, I'd sit with her in the library of my parents house. Sometimes, she'd curl up and sleep on the library couch for an hour or two. Watching her, I knew myself helpless, mastered by love that I knew would bring heartbreak as well as joy.



Because I knew that, although her mother had lived to be almost ninety, a happy old age wasn't possible for mom. Because she'd never see her grandchildren. Because we're not supposed to lose the person about whom we care more than anyone else -- or why bother to love at all?



And yet I, like so many of you, would not have chosen any other way. In the turmoil of our feelings, we know ourselves to be blessed by a bond so profound that nothing can alter it.

But for a while after mom died, I wouldn't let myself feel that deeply -- let anybody get that close. Until my kids were born. And now love has wrapped its velvet cords around my soul once more -- a love I confess I don't always feel for God.

Yes, love can hurt, but it also can heal. So maybe He can use it. And maybe, as the kids get older, and as I face the encroaching twinges that herald future ailments (as we all do), He can teach me to let them become the people He wants them to be -- and allow myself to believe fully that nothing, nowhere, is truly lost.