To feel love's sting

I had a friend, back in high school, who was being beaten up by her boyfriend. I'd see her with bruises on her arms that she'd sometimes try to hide; sometimes not. She was a truly, truly beautiful girl--part Egyptian, with big dark eyes and milky skin--and I had no idea why someone who loved her would want to hurt her. I'd try to tell her to leave the man, and she'd tell me with a look part rueful and part secretive, "Oh Kay, love hurts."

I never really understood that. I guess, even now, I still don't. Instead, now that I've grown up a bit, I understand better what it means to say "Love hurts." Teenagers love the mooning about, the constant waiting for calls or text messages, the delicious excitement of dressing up for a party where the loved one in question would be in attendance, the posting of song lyrics on blogs or Facebook, the writing of sad poetry or morose blog entries on unrequited love, the quoting of certain uninspired-but-quirky indie films like "500 Days of Summer" and the like. And there's a part of me, to be honest, that misses that sort of thing. To be young and to feel love's keen sting! I'd say to myself.

Not that I am any sort of old lady or mature personage of advanced years and wisdom. Most of the time I still behave like a teenager. I'm just happy to say that I know better, now, what it means to say that love hurts: it isn't the keen sting in your stomach when you think about the person you're infatuated with; it isn't even looking up from your food in a Chinese restaurant, as I did years back, and realizing that you're so in love that you're unable to eat. It's knowing how to give up certain things for love. It isn't generosity until you feel the pinch; likewise, it isn't love until you feel the sting of sacrifice.

If you're a mother, you get up early in the morning to wake up your kids and prepare breakfast for them, as my mom does heroically these days now that I'm shuttling daily between home and school. If you're an older sister, like my friend Nicole, you act like a third parent, enrolling your siblings, bringing them to class, picking them up from futsal practice, taking them shopping for clothes and school supplies. If you're a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you make certain sacrifices of time (within reason, I hope): you drive or commute somewhere though you could use that time to rest or to read yet another trans; you invest in the things that are important.

Furthermore, if you're a boyfriend or a girlfriend and you love both God and your significant other, you make certain sacrifices in the name of holy purity; you try your best not to be alone together in secluded places, and you take care that your expressions of affection do not endanger both the dignity of the loved one, and your devotion to the Loved One. That is what love is. Unlike what some proponents of holy purity say (with the best intentions, I'm sure), true love doesn't wait; this is what love is; the sacrifice itself is the expression of love, and you don't just begin to express that love when you're finally married and certain things are "allowed."

And if you're someone who knows that your love and destiny is to serve God in the gift of chastity and singleness, there are certain things you know how to give up; let's not be ridiculous and say that it's always easy, as though the part of you capable of feeling for the opposite sex had somehow been surgically removed when you made the commitment to serve God. Sometimes you may sit around thinking, "God, this is so hard; are you sure this is for me? Have you really got some reward waiting for me in exchange for all of this?"

Well, all you have to do is to remember that it isn't Love until you feel the pinch--and to trust in your Loved one and know that, no matter how generous you're being, he will always be a thousandfold more generous. And love will not sting so much.