This is a guest post by Mindie Kniss

 

There are risks you must be willing to take when traveling in Africa.  For me, the greatest of these was not malaria, typhoid or dengue fever.  It was love.

He was a handsome, young Kenyan with eyes that twinkled in the Nairobi sun.  We met while working at orphanages in the slums, cleaning classrooms and playing with babies abandoned in the streets.  He held my hand a moment longer than necessary to pass me a jump rope, and I opened my heart to him as if we’d known each other for lifetimes.

Years later, a phone call was all it took to unravel what had been built between multiple visits and thousands of miles.  A call to truth that revealed what I didn’t want to see.  My heart was broken open by this man I barely knew, yet thought I loved.  Though not the first time, and certainly not the last, I believed I would never again want something so badly… that this time it was different, more painful, more permanent.

Today, of course, I can look back and bless my naïve and younger self, and even smile when I think of him.  From the perspective of now, it is easier to see the big picture:  how each of us was in the right place, how it was actually the adventure of it all that most touched my desire.  To look with reverence and honor each action, that is true forgiveness:  gratitude for the experience of learning, growing and becoming.

It was the country herself that wooed me.

She embraced me with adventure, offered up her wildness to my heart, challenged me to risk loving this man.

Risk, however, is not about traveling across the world; it is opportunity unfolding right here and now inside us all.  Looking back at every risk I have ever taken, love has been the driver, stymying me in the face of my fear, to do what I didn’t know I could do.

In matters of the heart, we often believe that closing off and barricading up are the only ways to protect that most vulnerable space within.

In fact, it is the opposite that is true.  There is no guarantee, no certainty in love, but risking the adventure is worth even a hint of fear, and every tear.

Had I not experienced my Kenyan heartbreak, I would not be who and where I am today, preparing to marry the man of my dreams next year, and coaching people on how to take positive risks for love… for their hearts to unfold and open.

Here’s how I picture risk:  it’s like standing at the edge of a vast canyon, a million colors painting the rocks below, wide-open horizon ahead.  The risk is the leap, and just as young birds approach the edge of their nest, teetering between what they are certain of and what is possible, it is only in leaving the safety of what we know that we learn to soar.

When we allow our hearts to be cracked open, even when the pain numbs us to the core, we open to possibility.  Like old shutters swelled shut with paint and weather, that, once opened, let in the light for us to see more clearly than before.  To risk a new day, new love, new life.

To learn more about Mindie, her wonderful mission of helping others restart their hearts after almost giving up on love, visit her at www.RestartYourHeart.com.