Does my heart hurt?

Last night I became aware of the knowledge that my mentor's father had passed away suddenly yesterday morning. I was crushed. Every time my heart thinks of her and her family-I hurt. No, I have never met her personally. And, probably will not meet her until we get to heaven. But she has touched my heart in ways that only God and I know. So when she hurts I hurt. Why?--because I love her.

I asked God to put His love in my heart. A love that would allow me to love people the way He does. After all we are told we will be known by our love --right?

Today I feel love and pain. But that is o.k. because it will always happen this way. It is a good thing. With love comes feeling, and with feeling, an ability to stay in contact the heart of God. When His heart hurts so will mine.
So today I love and today I hurt.
Here is a little devotional I received by Elisabeth Elliot.

No Love Without Grief

Tell us, fool, who knows more of love--the one who has joys from it or the one who has trials and griefs? He answered: There cannot be any knowledge of love without both of them.

(Ramon Lull, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved)

When I imagine that I want to learn to love God--and to love my husband and others whom God has given me to love--let me test the desire of my willingness to accept trial and grief. If I can welcome them--Yes, Lord!--and believe God's purpose in them, I am learning the lesson of love. If I cannot, it's a fair indication that my desire to love is a delusion.

So today reach out in love. Christ did. Remember that He bore our grief so that in love we may bare another's.