Tonight I went and saw Letters to Juliet with my friends Randi and Danielle. It was an ok movie. Cute, with lots of funny moments, but a little too cheesy for my taste. Not bad if you're looking for a chick flick, but it was our conversation after the movie that really struck a chord with me. The movie is set in Italy, which started us talking about Italian guys (my friend dated one), then the emotional walls the keep us from starting relationships or continuing in them, which led me to share my story about how my many walls built up and then the extraordinary way that God broke them down. It took from the upstairs movie theater in the Mall or Georgia to standing by my car out in the parking lot for me to tell them simply the barest bones version of my story. It has been a long time since I've talked to anyone about the cumulative story of my life and how each event effected the next and made me who I am today, and it's been even longer since I've told anyone about the crazy events of my life that didn't already know some of it. The point is that all of this got me thinking about how much I have loved and lost in my life and how extraordinary it is that I have experienced so much at such a young age. It is both mind boggling and tragic to think that I have loved more in my life at 19 than some people do in their entire lives, and it amazes me how God has put people in my life and how those relationships have shaped me as a person. My life has been very full of love, but with an almost equal amount of loss and pain. I have suffered much. I have been hurt and put up great stony walls around my heart, but I am so grateful to God that I am now to appreciate the pain of loss as a mark of having had something to loose. I no longer fear getting hurt, what I fear is never getting hurt. I fear missing out on the fullness of life by trading love and all the risks and hurts that come with it for the security of sitting on the sidelines and knowing I'll always be safe. When you run away from pain, you run away from life.
Do not be afraid to approach life with an open heart. The greatest riches come with the greatest risks, and I am happy to say that I regret none of the risks I have taken.
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