vulnerable

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis, "To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one...  Wrap it careful 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...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell." 

Love hurts.  Love is hard.  It is scary to be vulnerable.  But it is worth it!  The more you give, the more love you will feel, and even though you are more vulnerable, you will live a happier life.  To know the most exquisite, full, complete happy love, you need to be vulnerable and experience pain and misery.  Otherwise you can never appreciate the happiness.  The more you give of yourself, the deeper your love will become.  Your capacity to love and be loved will grow.  Take the risk.  Love deeply.  Give yourself fully and freely.  Let yourself be vulnerable.