“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – CS Lewis

For some, the Christmas and holiday season are a bleak reminder of a broken heart.

A time of loneliness and melancholy for loved ones no longer with us.

A time to wish for one more chance, one more memory, one more “I love you” or “Merry Christmas”.

Sadness and heartache are real.

They are a price to be paid for loving another human being.

When I think of others going through times like this, I always go back to this quote from CS Lewis.

I’m not sure why it has to work like this, but I believe he explains how it does work.

We must choose between allowing our hearts to harden and turn to stone, or wade into the dangerous waters of vulnerability.

I know this is easier said than done and that compared to a broken heart some may wish for a heart of stone, but my sincerest wish is that even the broken hearted can find hope in CS Lewis’s words.

Hope and faith that real love is worth the heart ache. That a heart of stone is something we would not wish on our worst enemies.

This is part of the magic of Christmas. We are reminded to believe in love. To hope for what can be and to have faith that love will win out in the end.

As a Christian, this is the true meaning of Christmas. God loved us. God sent his son to live and then die on the cross in exchange for us. Love, God and Jesus won out in the end.

Make it a great day.

Jake