Love, and C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis has some of the most poignant quotes I have ever read:

"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 of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the perturbations of love is Hell."
-C.S. Lewis

I have to wonder how many of us risk becoming this - the sort that guards the heart so firmly that we forget to love. To take chances. Oh, yes, it means there will be pain. It hurts to love. But . . . how worth the pain it is to experience the joys of love.

*Walk in Love, Darlings*