If you’ve ever played guitar, you know that in order to continue and be proficient, you need to accept the pain of callouses on the ends of your fingers. I recently read somewhere that Eric Clapton puts alcohol on the tips of his fingers to keep them dry in order to “maintain” his callouses. A great guitarist needs calloused fingers in order to be outstanding – not only do they push through the pain, rather than doing whatever they can to ease the pain – many will make every effort to “maintain” what, in the end, will make beautiful music.

I gave up on the guitar almost immediately after I began.My aim is to be honest on this blog: I must admit that I did much the same thing with love after it began to leave a few callouses on my heart. I found that the pain and disappointment of loving were far too painful to bear. The only remedy I knew of was to give up on it, much the same way that I gave up on playing guitar. In fact, when I made a conscious effort to ensure no one could hurt me I had to harden my heart to love. That is far worse than a callous; a callous can be softened with a little effort. A heart that has been hardened is not just a condition of the surface.

These last two years or so I have come to realize that it is far more painful to exist without love than it is to live and love and risk a few callouses here and there. The truth of the matter is, whether it is family, friend, or the love of your life, if you set your sights on being loved – you will be hurt and disappointed, time after time – because when we give love for the purpose of receiving it our hearts are already somewhat calloused to begin with. If you make a decision to love freely, without condition, you will be loving as if there is no risk of being hurt …. again. Why? Because you are loving in order to love – whatever you receive as a result is a symphony played on your heart strings.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1st Corinthians 13:13.

Play a song on someone’s heart strings and see what beautiful music it will make. If you receive nothing back, that’s alright – that song will have been recorded for the ages and it will always be playing in the back of your mind.

Make a decision to live and love as though you’ve never been, or ever will be, hurt. Callouses on the heart are a sign that it is still beating.