Why do so many human relations, especially marriages break down nowadays? I think the reasons are high expectations and impatience that modern people live with. We may demand that a product we buy is cost-effective. But transferring the idea of consumerism into human relations is a serious error of thought.

When treated like an object anyone feels disappointed. But do we recognize that we self act in this manner? It takes a lot of introspection to realize that egoism is hidden in our core.

Unfortunately many people don’t have patience to listen to words of wisdom. This way they end up bruising themselves and others more or less. And that calls forth discontent and unhappiness.

Misused people often retreat when they hear religious talk. It is as if they were allergic to superordinate terms like “the love of God” and so on.

When it comes hard for us to believe in God and His love, our emotions freeze. We find ourselves fumbling in darkness without hope. This is not because God holds back his love from us. It’s because we refuse his love.

Anyone who has experienced true love knows that occasionally love hurts. God’s love is not deviant in this feature. But God is extraordinary in the way he heals the wounds that His love makes. Let the following poem guide us.

I am broken pieces of pottery.
Chip by chip I was taken apart.
Agony and despair I felt in my heart:
to endure I wanted, not to fracture.

You, my Lord, took me down
but You left not a bit behind.
So great was Your love for me
that You revised me entirely.

Compose me to new form.
Make me what I wasn’t before.
So You establish Your care
and clothe the one who is bare.

I hearten all you who are pound:
not one fragment is cast to the ground.
In the hands of the Lord
the most unworthy can be of worth.

(Poem by Liisa Pukkila-Pajunen, translation by Antti Kettunen).