tenderhearted

"Is it possible to care too much? Where and how do you draw the line? When it starts to affect your daily life? When it becomes all you think about? When people don't respond?"
I've been thinking about this all day. Trying to determine if this quality is a fault or a blessing. Looking for answers.
Then I come home from work and going to the movies afterward with my dear friend to find the answer posted on my Facebook wall.

"Some people care too much, I think it's called love.
A. A. Milne
Winnie the Pooh"

The same dear friend I went to the movies with had posted this on my wall much earlier in the day. I was flabbergasted. Yes, that was the one answer to my many questions.
God created me to be an open and loving person. He made me soft and put lots of extra doses of love in my heart. Sadly, this also means that I burn easily when people hurt me or aren't receptive to the love I so freely dish out. But...

Me: It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, right?

Dear Friend: Right. A life without love is no life at all, and we can rejoice in our heartbreaks in the end knowing that in some way or another they led to something better.

I love my dear friend.  I love my dear family.  And even though I seem doomed to live a life where not everyone will be able to understand or appreciate how freely I care about people, I think I'm ok with that.

Now I'm just hoping God will bring along a special guy for me to be with who is just as open and caring as I am.  I don't think I'd be content spending the rest of my life with any other kind of person.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:32

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourself.

Romans 12:10

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.

1 Timothy 4:12