All of us have experienced pain in one way or another. That can be physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, and the list goes on and on. We forget that pain cannot be experienced without joy and the same can be said about joy, that it cannot be experienced without pain. These go hand in hand. Sometimes we ourselves feel the pain others are going through, sometimes we try to understand. The pain I want to discuss today is for young single adults who seem to struggle with a certain emotional pain of being lonely. I am no stranger to this pain. I have dated several girls, have had my hopes risen, and lowered, been hurt, and rejected. One close friend of mine gave me a quote that has seriously helped me through all of this.
"Another kind of emotional pain to which we all seem subject arises from the risks we take in allowing ourselves to love others. There is no suffering quite like that which comes when love is shattered. After years of patient waiting for what seems like the right time, one may open up his or her heart to another, only to find that tender heart bruised or broken when the love is not returned. We therefore bear a grave responsibility for the purity of our motives when some trusting heart has offered us entrance. Anyone who stands on that threshold stands on holy ground, which must not be exploited or defiled. But should a relationship so develop that, even in spite of honesty, caution, and goodness of motive, a parting of the ways still must come, we must not let the pain of that moment make us so resentful or bitter that we become unwilling to risk opening our hearts again. That kind of risk is necessary, because loving simply has its risks. In a sense, there is no love without certain kinds of fear." Bruce C. Hafen, “A Willingness to Learn from Pain,” Ensign, Oct 1983, 63
I love this quote so much. So much truth is in it. I know that I cannot love with out taking risks, that fear only holds us back and hurts us.
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