Why Does Love Hurt?

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:2

“If we think love is not worth sorrow or pain, then we are more pagan than Christian.” I read this quote in an article recently on the four types of love as described by CS Lewis and most certainly agree with it, but why should we expect love to include sorrow and pain?

I think the Bible speaks to this question quite extensively. Jesus, a man full of sorrow and acquainted with grief, was described by the apostle John as love. So how do we reconcile these things? How can someone be a man of sorrows and love at the same time, unless love itself is somehow connected with sorrow and grief.

For most of us, we don’t truly realize how much we love someone or something until it is taken away from us and we often confuse the word love for the spine-tingling feeling we get when we are attracted to someone. Most of us now know that there’s a difference between love and attraction. We’ve had our hearts broken or the attraction ran out in the middle of the first date when you realized you couldn’t stand the person across the table from you.

But there’s also something more to this, which is in choosing to love, you are also choosing to suffer. It’s not just that suffering is connected to love, but its wholly apart of it. I know this doesn’t fit the mold of the Hollywood studios, but hear me out here. When we choose to love someone we are signing up for pain, no matter which way you cut it. In order to love someone deeply and truly, we will have to experience some pain or suffer along the way.

This doesn’t mean that the pain is excusable, I don’t believe that, but it is a part of the package. This also isn’t to say that love is nothing but pain. That’s certainly not the case. Love is worth the pain and sorrow that will inevitably come with it. It’s worth the suffering, even though most of us would not sign up for it if we truly knew the cost in advance.

Love requires suffering because our ultimate example, Jesus, shows us that suffering is a part of the process. For God so loved the world, scripture says, that he gave his only begotten son. Jesus, who knew the pain and sorrow associated with the cross, still went through with dying for us, because of his great love for us. Hebrews says it was for the joy that was set before him that he endured the cross. In other words, he endured the suffering because of the result of what was being accomplished.

Are you willing to suffer for your marriage? I’m not sure many people are. In fact, we worship comfort so much, I’m not sure we want to suffer for anything. Yet, suffering, scratch that…long suffering, is a fruit of the Spirit at work in our lives. If we are going to follow Jesus, which really means that we are going to love others well (especially your spouse), then suffering is a part of that process.

What will our suffering produce? It will produce a oneness, which is the goal of marriage. The two shall become one flesh. When we suffer in our marriage, we are living out the gospel and working towards becoming one flesh with our spouse. So we shouldn’t despise suffering, it’s producing something in us and through us, especially in the context of marriage.

Prayer - Father, help me to look at suffering and love the way that you do. Help me to see that my suffering is for my own good. Use my suffering to change me. Thank you for helping me grow closer to you and my loved ones. Amen.