Christian author C.S. Lewis fell in love late in life. Not long after his marriage to Joy Gresham, Joy contracted cancer. Lewis and Joy only shared a few short years together before she passed away. When C. S. Lewis speaks of the pain of love, we know he is speaking from experience. Here is what Lewis writes about the risks of love: “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 around with hobbies and little luxuries . . . 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 only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell!”

– “Loving Brings Pain” by Jan Silvious, “Pulpit Helps,” Feb. 2002, p. 10.

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