Knit Together In Love
It is unfortunately true that the ones we love the most are also the ones that we tend to hurt the most. We know each other so well, and we especially know each other’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities. We know exactly where to strike to cause the most hurt, and we can’t help ourselves but give into the temptation to poke each other right in those vulnerable spots. And even when we are not wounding each other with malice aforethought, we nevertheless spend so much time in such close proximity with one another that we can’t help but accidentally hurt each other in thousands of small and thoughtlessly cruel ways every day. If such constant pricking of our sore spots was the sad and inevitable end of all relationships, as many cynical and jaded people today truly suppose it to be, it is small wonder that the rational, self-preserving instinct of so many is to avoid getting entangled with another person entirely, or else to fight like mad to get out of a relationship at the earliest possible moment. Of course, this is not the end of any relationship built on and centered around love. It’s barely the beginning. When we through ignorance, carelessness, vindictiveness or cruelty pierce our loved one’s heart right where they are most vulnerable, or when our loved one has so pierced us, the one who has been wounded has a choice. We can in hot anger turn around and strike back, or else in cold fury cauterize the wound and shore up our vulnerabilities and close ourselves off, or we can do something that may be just as painful, or perhaps more so, but far, far braver. We can choose to forgive. We can choose to take all of the hurt and anger and betrayal and vindication and self-righteous fury and transform it into healing and compassion and humility and selfless love. We can take the needle that pierced our heart, loop it back around and send it right back at our loved one, and break their heart with our unflinching forgiveness just as easily as they broke ours with their unthinking cruelty. Retaliation and revenge lead only to a pair of many times over punctured and bleeding hearts. But meeting every betrayal with forgiveness, every unkindness with kindness, every malice with grace, leads to our hearts being knit together with love. If we have wronged each other seventy times seven times, and yet have forgiven each other seventy times seven times, then how much more closely knit are our hearts than for those who gave up on the constant struggle of fighting and forgiving after a mere seven times? It is no small feat for two people to cleave together and become one flesh. It requires lots and lots of knitting, lots and lots of poking each other and forgiving each other, and poking each other and forgiving each other. It may even take all of eternity before we have found the last tucked away corners of our hearts that need to be knit together in love.
