Love Until You Break

Time and time again, I have heard the phrase "love until it hurts", and there is so much truth to that. But sometimes, it goes further than that. I can say from experience, it doesn't always stop there, often hurt ends up breaking you. You find yourself wondering if you can continue... Sometimes it's you wondering if you can continue in your job, or your calling, and sometimes it's you wondering if you can continue in life.

On January 19th, we lost our little Analia. When we got the call back in May, wondering if we would accept this little girl, we knew she would die in our care (she had a rare condition that made her a terminal case). Because of this, I wanted to say no to her. I didn't want to open myself up to love someone so much, to become her mom and love her as my own, if I would just have to say goodbye to her (I knew that that was not the right way to approach the situation, but that is what my emotions were saying). Taryn had a level head about it, she knew we had to say yes to this little girl because she needed our love. Taryn was my voice of reasoning. At Analia's funeral, as Stevie and the other guys lowered our little girl into the ground, I leaned over to Taryn and through tears said, "Thank you for convincing me that we needed to take her". 

Love until you break. 

On Saturday we had to say goodbye to our Samuel. He has been with us since June and has brought so much joy, energy and noise to this house. His family situation is rough and we thought he would be with us long term, seeing as his previous court hearing he was told he would never be able to be returned to his aunt and uncle (who, up until this point, were the only people who showed any interest in Samuel). But on January 30th our hearts broke as we were informed that a brother (who Samuel didn't seem to recognize at all) showed up out of nowhere and said that he wanted Samuel. We love Samuel like crazy, he is our boy, but we had no choice but to send him away.

Love until you break.

I have read that there is a Japanese art of fixing pottery called Kintsugi. This is a centuries-old technique that uses a special lacquer (mixed with platinum, silver or gold) to put broken pottery back together. This technique is used to celebrate the potteries history and beautify and strengthen the pottery as a whole, rather than to hide the broken parts.

I think that this is a beautiful representation of what God does in us. Everyone says "God will let you bend, but he wont let you break." I do not believe that to be true. He does let us break, he just promises that He will always be there to pick us up and put us back together. He allows us to break so that we can be turned into the beautiful, strengthened creation that he wants us to be. Right now, it's pretty impossible to see why God took Analia away and why he sent Samuel back to his family. I don't know why or how God is using these thing to shape us, but I trust that he is, and I trust that he also knows what he is doing through all of this.

So, open yourself up, be vulnerable... love until you break.