Sometimes Love Hurts   

Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”
1 Corinthians 12:26 “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”
Surely you’ve noticed. You get up in the middle of the night and kick the corner of something. Maybe it’s the bed or the dresser. It really doesn’t matter; all you know at that moment is that there is severe and unwelcome pain. So let me ask you: how much of your body is concerned about what just happened to your toe? Do you think, it’s just a toe, it’ll be okay, and you go on without giving it any more thought?
You know what happens. Your entire being is completely caught up in what is happening to that one small part of your body. When it happens, that toe is not alone in suffering. Your mouth and tongue cry out. Your whole body bends over just to be closer. Your leg raises up your foot as your hand rushes down to hold that poor hurt toe. It’s not alone. Every member of your body is well aware of what that one member is going through, and every member is wanting and waiting for that one member to feel better.
One of the prices we pay for love is hurting when a loved one hurts. It happens to us frequently just as it happened to Jesus. One of the best known verses in the Bible is also the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). It was the death of Lazarus that brought this about, but was that really the reason Jesus wept?
I don’t think Jesus wept just because Lazarus had died. Yes, He dearly loved Lazarus, but He knew He could raise him from the dead. But Jesus also loved the many friends who had come to share in the grief over the death of Lazarus and to be of comfort to Mary and Martha. Jesus cared so much for those people who were hurting so deeply. He hurt because they hurt. He was grieved because they were grieved. He wept because they wept.
And in this simple story is a powerful lesson for us today! We too should and do care that much for one another. We too are deeply moved with compassion for our brothers and sisters who experience grief. We love and care so much that sometimes it hurts. That’s the price of being in a loving family, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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