madness: on love [february appopriate]

it's been a month of late night wakefulness, head on the pillow, mind mulling over faces and names and places, and thinking about this thing called love. sometimes it feels like madness.  

it's been a month of heart breaking and mind numbing facts about the ugly truth of abortions.

the massive genocide taking place on this continent in the name of "planning" or erasing the ugly memories, or preventing the "poor quality of life," comes down to nothing more than thousands of babies who cannot speak for themselves having their lives ended by some person who never had the right to determine their quality of life or right to live in the first place.

it's been a month of rising awareness and reminders that all over this nation and the world, beautiful, innocent girls and women are being sold as commodities so that someone somewhere can attempt to fill the empty void as well as fill their empty pockets.

so much selfishness.

so much ugly.

so much hurt.

it's been a month of remembering the tiny part of the HIV/AIDS crisis that I was able to be a part of, that it is so much more than the city, the country and the continent that I was on. it is so much more than numbers and facts and big-eyed, manipulating advertisements. 

it is laughter and sorrow and mothers and sons and fathers and daughters and every day life. it is visiting hospitals and dealing with stereotyping and a daily medicine regimen and the struggle to keep a healthy diet. it is  the forever a part of my history reminder that those big-eyed manipulating advertisements are kids that have names and friends and school struggles and school triumphs; that they have beautiful, beautiful smiles and can dance like nobody's business; that yes, they feel the hurt, but they also are just regular kids who need love and support and to learn about the God who loves them more than I can. 

but the hurt and the burdens aren't just on a large scale. they are the quiet struggles and rejections and hurting of people near and dear to my heart. they are shared in late night phone conversations and weekly venting sessions and talks over morning coffee and during long transports.

sometimes I wonder if life would be a lot easier without all this caring and empathy, without all this love 

Rocky in the Sundance Film Festival film "Blood Brother" so aptly said, "there's freedom in not being close to anyone cuz then you don't get hurt....a sense of madness in loving things that can come and go from your life, especially when you lose people that you planned on loving long term."

but, what is life outside of love? outside of pouring yourself into and investing in the lives of others? have we not been called to love others as much as God has loved us? even in the midst of profound hurt and suffering, our purpose is to love; even when the hurt of the world is an overwhelming burden to fathom, let alone bear. 
I think that especially then, even if it hurts me more to be involved, I should be there to love sacrificially. 
maybe it is madness.
but it is worth it.

"to love would be an awfully big adventure."
-Peter Pan

"I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing. and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside."
-unknown