C.S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves states:“To love is to be all 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 careful 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 only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers… of love is Hell.”

The heart unguarded is a dangerous place – it can be a war zone in there. With everything around us vying for our attention, to be caught in our hearts, the unguarded heart will lead you away from peace.

Sometimes my heart gets really weary. I get tired feeling like I am giving out, sometimes without any return. Sometimes I feel weary because I want to love but at times it just seems too hard. Too hard to overcome my own selfishness, to hard to reach out into perspective from my tunnel vision.

As I walk through this journey and the more I experience I realise how delicate the heart really is. How much we are effected by the things around us and in us; the people, the situations and circumstances. Before we know it something has rooted itself in there. Sometimes they are good things like hope, faith and love and other times its bitterness, unforgivingness or disillusionment. And its these things that if they get rooted in our hearts, will flow out of us.  They will either build up or tear down.

But even with that in mind, I hold on to hope in the good in which the human heart is capable. For in it resides a pure love and love motivates everything. I never want to lose hope in this.

I want to keep choosing to love. I want to keep reaching beyond myself.

I want love to win.