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Things they do not tell you:

- Your first love will be wonderful, but your second love will be the most important and possibly the most dangerous. He will teach you to love in the places where all hope is lost. He will teach you to break through all the bricks you have laid and shake the dust off your feet. He will make you laugh at all the times you thought you would never be able to love again. It will not make vulnerability any easier or act as anesthetic to brokenness, but you will learn from him that hardening your heart protects you from the good as much as the bad. You will learn that the danger comes from hope. It will fill your pockets with disappointment, but it will also breathe life into everything you touch.

- You can be just as lonely in a relationship as you are single. The latter might be better until you learn that you cannot love on your own, and that un-lonely love comes with the help of the One Who Loves Too Much. It comes from receiving and giving. It comes from first being filled. And it comes from knowing that where He lives, there is no loneliness to be found.

- When you are sad, the world will tell you that you need to make yourself feel better. It will tell you that you need to fill your life with busyness, that you need to distract yourself, and that you need to be happy again. I will tell you now that the world is lying to you. What you actually need is true, deep rest and time to feel all the things that need to be felt. It is okay not to be okay or to feel crazy or stupid or scared. It is okay to mourn for things that were good. It is okay to sit on the floor for a little while and be completely aware of what is going on in your heart, whether it's pain or anger or anxiety. Those feelings will not always be there, I promise. Just know that when your heart feels like it's going to burst from emotions and ugliness and overwhelming sadness, His hands are big enough to hold it all and keep it safe. And remember when you cry and it feels like your tears are filling up your room faster than you can empty them, that He is a God that will set fire to wood that is wet just to prove how much He loves you.