Love Is Enough

The icy days set in, and I layer up to plow straight into the cold night. A cozy sweater and all pretense aside, I know more than the bitter chill of the night is waiting for me. A hard conversation banked up on every side, begging to be moved before the dawn.

Surely you know the feeling of those hard, cold places. We would rather stay in the warmth and comfort of safety than face such cold.

But this night, knee-deep in love and with prayers piled high from many days of pondering, my heart is lighter as inch by inch, in good conversation, in hard conversation, we move the barrier. Not digging for answers, but pouring out salt for our footing with words of grace and repentance. Pointing each other to the light that draws us back in over and over. And then love breaks through. A way is made.

Is it any wonder we celebrate love in these shorter days, when darkness still lingers a bit longer and the sharpness of winter begins to dull our senses? The Feast of St. Valentine, Valentine’s Day. We long for love to break through. We want the mystery of love to enamor us. We beg love—real love—to saturate and warm the cold, dark places of our lives. To allow salt to steady our steps on the icy patches. To send light to make our paths sure. Our truest desire is for love to anchor our souls.

But life sets in, just like winter. Hearts go untended because in all the work of plowing along, we never look up. Our souls are completely unraveled and tangled by the long days and the challenges of simply living. So we retreat inside, to the comfort. Rather than tending our hearts, we furiously scroll through page after page, looking for something to buy or something to share that will give us the approval we long for. We size up belongings, houses, marriages, and jobs, looking for the final stamp of love. And even if we are trying to look up from the work of life and let love in, often life brings us the ache of sickness, messy relationships, and things even more unspeakable. Love gets buried.

Our hearts long for Love to break through. True Love. Scripture reminds us that it already has: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16 NIV). Love, in the form of Jesus Christ, is breaking through every day in a million different ways.

In sacrifice, Love breaks in. When we lay down ourselves for others—for little people or sick people or hurting people, the very people Christ laid down his life for—we see love break through. And in his goodness, we feel fully alive. We feel the most love when we are the most giving. It is no surprise, then, that over and over again, Scripture reminds us of this: even in the darkness of the cold and the bitterness life might bring, Love is breaking through. As Paul says, “God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions” (Ephesians 2:4–5 NIV).

That is one of the great mysteries of love. It is because of love and for love that Love himself breaks through. Always.

So “let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18 NIV). It is in the work—digging out in hard conversations, spreading salt to steady the next step, and shining light for each other with grace—that Love breaks through.

With southern roots in both Texas and Tennessee, Abbie Gristy loves sharing life with family and friends and is happiest surrounded by her husband and three strong and sweet kids. Passionate about making the most of every moment of life, she’s an avid reader, adequate cook, want-to-be runner who loves organizing and re-organizing!

Photograph © Bethany Beams, used with permission