Love That Hurts So Very Much

Corrie ten Boom grew up in Holland at the turn of the century and is best known for her work in the Dutch underground resistance during World War II.  She and her family are credited with rescuing hundreds of Jews and were the hub of these efforts in the city of Haarlem.  She and her sister were arrested, imprisoned, and suffered in a Dutch concentration camp, later to be shipped to a death camp in Germany.  The evil they encountered was shocking to these conservative women, but they did not shrink back.  They showed courage and fortitude that gave hope and strength to so many suffering around them.  In her book “The Hiding Place” Corrie describes experiences in her life that, unbeknownst to her, prepared her for just this type of work.  One such moment occurred after she was betrayed by the love of her life in young adulthood. The only man she had ever loved and ever imagined spending her life with.  She had given her heart completely to this man.  They had shared secrets, dreamed of future children and even planted imaginary flowers outside the home they would share.  The pain of this deception and the depth of this loss for her present and future was devastating.  She describes that night after her love, her Karel, appeared at her family’s doorstep with his fiancée and shockingly announced their upcoming wedding:

“How long I lay on my bed sobbing for the one love of my life, I do not know.  Later, I heard Father’s footsteps coming up the stairs.  For a moment I was a little girl again, waiting for him to tuck the blankets tight.  But this was a hurt that no blanket could shut out, and suddenly I was afraid of what Father would say.  Afraid he would say, “There’ll be someone else soon,” and that forever afterward this untruth would lie between us.  For in some deep part of me I knew already that there would not--soon or ever--be anyone else.  The sweet cigar-smell came into the room with Father.  And of course, he did not say the false, idle words. “Corrie,” he began instead, “do you know what hurts so very much?  It’s love.  Love is the strongest force in the world and where it is blocked that means pain.  “There are two things we can do when this happens.  We can kill the love so that it stops hurting.  But then of course part of us dies too.  Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.  “God loves Karel--even more than you do--and if you ask Him, He will give you his love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy.  Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.”  

The pain of having your love as a parent blocked cannot be expressed.  It hurts so very much and in so many ways.  We were gifted this love the moment we became a mom or a dad and we lavished it on our children.  We couldn’t help it.  We love them.  When that most special love is rejected, when that love is not received, the pain is excruciating.  It impacts not just our relationship with our child, but with our other children, other people, our memories of the past and thoughts of the future.  Just as Corrie’s father told her- we have a choice.  The temptation to “kill the love” so it stops hurting is palpable.  The urge to run away, to stop the hemorrhaging is primal.  This is pain beyond imagination.  It is totally reasonable and rational to build walls, high and firm, around our hearts after the love so pure, so vast, so beautiful was blocked in such savage fashion.  

But there is another choice. There is “another route for that love to travel.”  This is the path of openness, of vulnerability, of choosing to love when there is nothing lovely. This is loving even when the love is spit upon, refused, reviled.  This love chooses to keep on loving even with the gaping, wounded, bleeding flesh is exposed.  This loving of our children is not the “old, human way” most parents get to love their children with.  This love is heroic.  It depends not on the reaction of one’s child.  It does not even necessitate a relationship with the child.  It transcends space, time, insult, rejection, even estrangement.  It does not mean there are no boundaries, for those are necessary to maintain a posture of true love and openness.  I am speaking of the kind of love that sees beyond the overwhelmingly real circumstances of being the parent of a trans identifying child.  I am speaking of a love that sees such disturbing physical changes, hears violently angry words, observes painfully confusing behavior and yet looks beyond to love in the perfect way.  This love rejects bitterness, it forgoes the lure of self-protection, it loves with abandon.  Love like this does not take away the pain, it does not justify our children’s behavior, but it keeps us alive, keeps us in the game.  It refuses to allow this great tragedy to be the end.