Sometimes The Heart Hurts

That's the tricky thing about hearts.  We could just lock them up, never to break, never to shatter, never to mourn.  But then we would never feel, never love, never live.

It's a dilemma.  A great risk we take every single day.

Sometimes, many times, it pays off.

But sometimes, the heart must endure the most unfathomable of pain, as a result of it's love.

This gorgeous, beautiful family is walking that road of sorrow this very day.  Today, they will say goodbye to their sweet 3 year old Marley, taken too soon by every parents' nightmare, brain cancer.  After a brave battle that began before she blew out two candles on her cake, Marley met Jesus on Tuesday.

As I write these words my stomach constricts and tears well up in my eyes.  For a mother, any mother, the pain is so palatable.  It does not matter if you've known them your whole life or only just looked upon Marley's face for the first time.  We all know what a risk it is to love.  We all know what is at stake.    As the quote says:

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." ~Elizabeth Stone

And yet, even in the face of such great risks, the reality that your heart may actually shatter into a million pieces, we still persist in love.  Because we know that locking the heart away, safe from pain, is not really living.  The beauty in loving is doing so in spite of the sorrow that may wait around the corner.

I know Nikki and Brent never dreamed that they would bury their child at the age of 3.  Please lift them up in your thoughts and prayers today.