Hold My Heart

I know that I have shared this quote from CS Lewis before, but it bears repeating as it is relevant to this post.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to 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. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Today, I realized that I am scared at the idea of ever being in love with someone again. Even when I picture the best case scenario of me as a married woman, there’s this loud inner voice in my head that screams I DON’T WANT THIS!

I’m still not sure if that loud inner voice is God speaking or my fear getting to me. But I can say that it’s a huge change from how I was a few years ago, when I was desperate to be in love. Maybe I’m just swinging on a pendulum or maybe a relationship isn’t the best thing for me right now, but I realized today that I can’t be afraid of the idea of being in love with a person.

You might be wondering what in heck could’ve happened to me that would make me so scared of falling in love. To make a long story short, I have fallen in love multiple times in the past and every time I did, I ended up hurting and worse than before. While I can laugh it off right now, the laughter masks the vulnerability I still feel about the idea of being in love.

In the end, I decided that for today, I will trust my heart to God and pray that since He created my heart, He can keep my heart open for whatever love comes into my life. There’s a song for that, as always. Tenth Avenue North’s “Hold My Heart” has become one of my favorites lately and I feel like it describes what I go through sometimes when I’m confused or don’t understand what’s going on in my life.

I’ll end this blog post with a prayer about guarding one’s heart. I hope that this prayer can help anyone out there who’s as confused and scared of love as I am.

Most Precious Lord Jesus, Gentle And Wonderful God, Truly Awesome And Ever-present Holy Spirit,

Precious Lord Jesus, I love you.

May I always have your love in my heart.

May I always use your love to guard my heart against the evil one.

May your love protect my heart against the evil of temptation.

May your love protect my heart against the evil of ego.

May your love help me stand against feeling sorry for myself.

May your love help me build a wall against the attack of the darkness around me.

In your love and grace, help me fight against evil influences.

In your love and grace, help me engage in the spiritual war in which I am engaged so you shall win the victory.

May the living water of your being stay within me and may your spirit flow from my heart so others know how much you love them.

You are the source of my life.

May I always be ever mindful of how much you love me and look over me.

May I guard the love you place in my heart so I can humbly live in obedience to your will.

As a protection, whenever I have setbacks and disappointments please remind me the abundance of my life starts in my heart and through you I can find the infinite.

As a protection, whenever I have heartbreak, please inspire me to always come to you to soothe the ache.

As a protection, whenever I have sadness and grief, please inspire me to always come to you to find your comfort.

As a protection, whenever I feel spiritually poor, please remind me the source of my spiritual riches is in knowing how much you love me and how much you care for me.

All these things I humbly pray in the name of my most Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, my Mighty God, and my Ever-present Holy Spirit upon whom I can rely.

Amen