Why has finding love been so disappointing? First Draft

Maybe life is depressing because we insist on loving people who don't love us back, who care so little. What of those who have always loved us, even when it was not convenient for them? Most of us are looking for love in the wrong places, from the wrong people. Now that I think about it, it's clear that when it matters most, it's family that will be on our side, not a crush we have been pining after. Sometimes, being a little critical only makes me more cynical when it comes to romance, which isn't a good thing, clearly. And just like most things, there's usually a story behind it, mostly a broken heart. Why don't the people we love love us back?

What is heartbreak according to Brianna Wiest [[101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think]]

The deceitfulness of our hearts, and the deceitfulness of sin by John Owen [[Indwelling Sin by John Owen]]

Why do we even have crushes, does love lie in our power? [[I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris]]

 Love is in the long term, and so much may be required of us than we may ever be willing to give. What happened with other crushes? Why did you stop loving them? Are you sure you love her? Why do you think you would want to spend the rest of your life with her?

Is there someone better than you that she would be better of having, would you give her up? Are you worthy of her?

So what will we choose? When it counts, we choose mind over heart, reason over romance.

He who regards the wind will not sow...

Sometimes we need to take the risk, if a captain wanted his ship to be safe, he would keep it at the docks, but that is not where ships were build to be.

Sometimes despite the hurt we could ever bear, we choose to love. Because when we choose love, we choose vulnerability, we choose to be hurt, to be disappointed. Is it worth it though? That's where perspective from other people come in, people need to see sense on your behalf during the times when you can only see love and nothing else.

The heart know its own sorrows, and no one can share in its joy. [[Proverbs]]

A New Attitude Towards Pain and Suffering

There's something quite sublime about pain and suffering. It is only pain that can allow us see certain things. Suffering and deprivation, occasionally serve as instruments that awaken us to the reality and existence of certain things and certain people in our lives, who otherwise we would never think of. How suffering is good in this regard, we can only appreciate when it's past, in retrospect, for no sane man could ever be glad that he is suffering; yet the wisest are glad they suffered. According to Virginia Woolf in her essay "On Being Ill" she explains that the sick man can finally think about the sky, He never would have had had he always known wholesome health all his life.

We cannot always be happy. Happiness would not be happiness if there was no sadness. If there was no other emotion in the world that men would be disposed to but happiness, happiness would lose its meaning. Happiness is what it is because sadness is what it is. For happiness to be what it ought to be, sadness is indispensable. We need the sadness in order that we may understand why happiness is such a blessing. When people always get us, when we always want what we have, when success comes easily to anybody who wishes it, what would it mean? It would be intolerable.

Always to have sympathy, always to be accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable- Virginia Woolf

It is clear then why A. W. Tozer would say: if we never come down from the mount of blessings we may easily come to trust in our own delights rather than in the unshakable character of God; it is necessary therefore that our watchful Heavenly Father withdraw His inward comforts from us sometimes, to teach us that Christ alone is the rock upon which we must repose our everlasting trust.

When we do not fail occasionally, we may forget what it actually means to do well. Even if in part, could this be a probable explanation as to why some people would go to the lengths of actively creating trouble for themselves, and inflicting pain on themselves. Could it be because life isn't life without it's messiness? Certainly, it is the struggles, the striving, the sighs and the pains that give life its meaning.

We need the heartbreaks, so that when we are finally loved, we can truly know what it means to be loved with such fervent passion, with no qualms or conditions. It warms our hearts to know everyone loves us, when everyone praises us, but then we find ourselves asking the question, "what does my life mean?" Just like Jephthah in Judges 11 many people have become great because they were rejected. Denied any inheritance and rejected by his brothers for being the son of a harlot, Jephthah went on to become a great army commander. He still, probably, would have had become so great a man had they embraced him as a brother from the beginning, but that would have been quite unlikely. Rejection, pain, disappointments, betrayals, these things not only come to crush us, but to prove us.

Privation, inconvenience, and ill-health should open our eyes to see the Lord, to see all that he has made available, all that that in good health looks mundane and dispensable. We need the rejection, the lady we think to be a queen needs to turn down our proposal, so that we could at least come down from our high pedestal and reconcile our state with the general plight of humanity. A lady may need to be broken so that she may stop thinking of herself an angel. We need the pain, we need the suffering, so that we can at least learn our lessons. Let us not run from the wilderness, let us not shun away the night, it has its lessons to teach, and we do well to learn.

The Sins of Omission

Most people are sinners not because of what they have done, but because of what they have not done. The wretchedness of our lives could in some sense be attributed to our inaction during those critical moments of our lives when we needed to do something but instead chose to do nothing. It’s quite clear that it is not always something we do that gets us into trouble, but something we do not do, that we should’ve done. It’s been said that in our old age, we will regret not what we did, but what we did not do. To do nothing is a much greater risk, and I have had someone put it, though a little bit paradoxically, that it takes lots of courage to be a coward. It certainly does. It takes a lot of courage to do nothing, it’s the harder option. What were we supposed to do. Have we restrained our hands from helping, and have we shut our mouths from speaking.

By keenly avoiding to face some of the pertinent issues of our lives, we have allowed things to get messier, terrible and out of control. Our contribution could have kept things from escalating but we opted for silence. To date, we haven’t apologized when we should have ages ago. We haven’t shown up for the people we claimed we loved. We have failed to do our best as we promised. We haven’t shown kindness and compassion to those who needed it.

As it is, we always miss 100% of the shots we do not take. He who knows what he ought to do, but does not, to him it is sin, so the Scriptures say, he can be sure that his sin will find him out.

In Numbers 32, Reuben and Gad choose not to go to battle, opting instead to live by their flocks and take care of their children. Moses asks, “shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?” He warns them, “If you do not go forth to the battles of the Lord, and contend for the Lord God, and for his people, ye do sin against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.

In his book Stillness is the Key, Ryan Holiday recounts the words of Nassim Taleb, that if you see fraud, but do not say fraud you are a fraud. There’s the choice about standing back, about not getting our hands dirty, about not getting ourselves involved in other people’s business, but that’s the harder and costlier choice. When we do the silent treatment in a relationship, whether it is with a partner, a friend, a roommate, a parent, a neighbor, when we keep silent when we should speak we act unjustly, and our sin will find us out. When we can help but we do not help, we are the world’s greatest cowards; we are frauds. Ryan goes on to says, the health of our spiritual ideals depend on what we do with our bodies in the moments of truth. The Priest and the Levite who passed by the injured man could have done something, they didn’t; they looked away, they walked away. When someone needed you, did you look away? He who is blessed with the world’s goods, and yet shuts himself up from helping one who is in need, does he not sin? Jesus says: do not refuse him who asks for your help. If you act, will it change anything? If yes, then act. When men take up arms to go to war, do not sit back and rest. Rise with them, go and fight with them. This could bring the just concluded protests in the medical field to mind, but it is more than just showing up with the placard. It is not about yelling, it is saying something when it truly matters.

The choice about living like a coward or dying a hero is ours to make, when we do the former, we can be sure our sin will find us out. Things may unspool themselves alright, the storm may calm without us not having acted, but still, we can be sure that our sin will find us out. The honey in the hive might be abundant, but it won’t be what it would have been had all the bees brought in their share of the nectar. What should you be adding to your team? Are you holding back when their goodwill depends on you? Is it your habit not to meet for fellowship? Do you make your contribution of prayers to the common stalk? What have you not done? Have you apologized? Have you clarified your intentions? Notice a need in the world, then do something about it. If you do not know how to help, stand up and ask, “excuse me, how can I help?”

Don’t be a coward.