Pain

Some short and simple ponderings, as I am pressed for time, yet strangely feel compelled to post anyways.

A quote from Anna and the King: "If love were a choice, who would choose such exquisite pain?"
(it may not be word for word,but it's close, I promise).

What is this weird paradox that what we desire most (love) is what pains us most, and it is only through pain that our ability to truly love grows and stretches and more resembles the Perfect Lover (Christ)? The more I am hurt by those I love, and find a way to forgive that hurt through seeking God's grace to be able to do so, the more I find I am able to love, and to do so with more reckless abandon and less fear of pain. Why is it that this pain is not like physical pain? If I touch fire, I pull away, nurse my wounds, and keep a healthy distance from flames in the future, if I am sane. There is no merit in returning to the fire and this time holding my hand there longer. That is foolishness edging on insanity. But love is the opposite. Unless I would choose to harden my heart, smother it's passions until it finally suffocates and dies, I must go back to the fire and be burned again, and instead of debilitating wounds, I find my fear lessens and I even in a somewhat masochistic way I welcome the pain. For on the other side of pain in reconciliation, growth and joy, or even if this does not happen, there is at least the knowledge that I loved, and loved truly, and God is sovereign over the results. And so as love again requires pain, I find myself a little less hesitant to through myself into those flames, trusting in the miracle of God's grace to bring beauty from ashes.