An Undefended Heart
Healing and Wholeness in Relationships
Reflection By Robbin Brent
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully 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. To love is to be vulnerable.
- C.S. Lewis
In the tenderness of a new love, I discovered that choosing to be undefended created a space where my heart could be completely open. I also discovered that while an undefended heart can be hurt and broken, it is also a wellspring of courage. To love this way after years of guarding my heart, I drew strength from Jesus’ reassurance that loving without reservation is always a path to healing and wholeness. When lovingly tended, an unguarded heart is a heart free to give and receive so much more goodness, sweetness, generosity, and love.
By opening his heart fully to the pain and brokenness of the world, we see in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection the power of an unguarded heart. His ultimate act of surrendering to love showed us that God’s healing love is at work in every dimension of our lives. We, too, in our most intimate relationships, can choose to let down our guard, to allow our hearts to be seen and known in all their beauty and brokenness.
As we journey with Jesus to the cross, can we risk loving without reservation by allowing our own hearts to be opened, knowing that it is only in this openness that we can fully give and receive the love that is our deepest response to God’s ceaseless love for us?
Making It Personal: How might you embrace openness in your relationships as a path to healing and wholeness? What would it look like to risk an undefended heart, trusting in the power of love?