All those who have seen the Princess Bride will perhaps remember that time when Wesley , as the Dread Pirate Roberts, tells Buttercup, "Life is pain, highness! Anyone who says otherwise is selling something." The same is true for love.
Love is, much more often than not, pain. It is suffering, more perhaps, than you believed you could suffer. Suffering, however, is essential to love, for without suffering, one cannot truly be said to love. The ultimate test of friendship is what happens to that friendship when you are down, when you can't go on. The true friend is the one that stands beside you at that time, looking out for you and your interests, whether or not it is in his or her best interests to do so.
It is so very, very similar with love. How does one show love to others when one is in pain, whether it be emotional, physical, spiritual, or intellectual? This is the ultimate question and the true determining factor of love- can you, when you've been hurt, when you're tired, when you're upset, can you give of yourself to the point that you do what is best for the other person at that moment? That is the goal we must strive towards, the goal we must seek to live out.
Suffering is the true test of love- it is the fire that burns the dross from the gold. It is the flame that tempers the steel. Suffering is the cleansing flame, that if embraced with love, has the ability to make us whole.
If you wish for inspiration, look to the Cross. There you will find suffering, because there you find love. “No greater love is there than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Is this not what it is to suffer? And in suffering, is this not the living out of love?
This is not to say that love is suffering always, and that if you are not suffering you are not loving. But one must be willing to suffer and endure anything for the beloved. In that consists the purifying essence of suffering, when embraced with love.
God love you.
Very good posts, these last three.
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