As someone very dear to my lay this morning in hospice care suffering from what may be her final stroke, I found myself wondering why it is that loving someone has to hurt so deeply. Amidst the self-pity and the feeling that I didn’t have sufficient time, trying to find some comfort in John’s words where he reminds us that God is love, but left adrift and unsteady in trying to make sense of grief and loss I simply asked God why, and waited.

The first answer I received was profound, if not comforting. It was that the best of love is when we can give to someone who can’t give us exactly what we’re looking for. Sometimes what that person gives us in return for our love is more than we want, even if it’s not what we think we need.

The second answer I received regarding love was this – love hurts so much because when we truly love someone, they become a part of us, and we, them. When they hurt, we hurt; when they rejoice, we rejoice; and when they leave, a portion of us does as well. When we choose to love, we offer to that person we have chosen to love, a precious part of ourselves – we give them something of who we are. Some part of us now lives in them.

This sounds like a dangerous and costly exchange, but the economics of the exchange aren’t what we think. For those who choose to love, love is not a limited resource. If, as John said, God really is love, then love is limitless, and the more of it we use, the more of it we will have.

Of course, Love is still costly; when we lose someone we love deeply, that loss will hurt us deeply. And we can know that there will be more love, and more loss. But we can also know that the same love we have for others, God has for us. And we can remember that as we weep, Jesus also wept.

We may be broken-hearted at times, but we are never alone.