"When your own heart's been broken it will be time for you to think of talking. But someone must say in general what's been unsaid among you this many a year: that love, as mortals understand the word, isn't enough. Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried."

"The saying is almost too hard for us."

"Ah, but it's cruel to not say it. They that know have grown afraid to speak. That is why sorrows that used to purify now only fester."

....

"Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death."

-The Great Divorce, CS Lewis (my favorite lines, from one of my favorite books... and what I referenced in a recent post)

I'm rejoicing in this, that all around I feel much dying in me, and that from it can come life, and a love that can live forever. Oh Lord, let these sorrows purify.

I've long believed that great pains and hurts, gently responded to, are what make a great woman: tender and gentle and strong. But in the past couple months, I've learned that it is as much by receiving love as by loving when your heart is broken. I keep repeating to myself (almost in surprise), "love has done a work in me." It's true. The love and gentleness of many in my life even just in the past few months, has done a great work in me. It's made me something different, and it's begun a discontent with my lack of love for others. My prayer's always been to be an act of love, that I'm more love than me... and that when people encounter me, they encounter tangible, real, embodied love. I'm so far from that. And I'm so desperate to become it. And that is why, as I feel death, I celebrate that love may be being birthed, love that is stronger than me.