Can You Love Someone and Still Walk Away? ❤️
Heart Check — Thursday, October 22, 2026 — NOON
🎶 Inspired by Healing in Silence
Beloveds, pull up a chair.
I’ve been listening to a song that has me thinking about love.
Not just the beautiful beginnings.
Not just the butterflies, promises, and happily-ever-afters.
I’ve been thinking about the love that remains when a relationship changes.
The kind that asks a question we don’t always want to answer.
Can you still love someone and choose to walk away?
Hmm. 🤔
Somebody might say, “Well, if you really loved them, you’d stay.”
Somebody else might say, “If you loved yourself, you’d leave.”
But I’m wondering whether either answer tells the whole story.
Because loving somebody and being in a relationship with them are two different things.
Love concerns what is in my heart toward you.
A relationship involves what is happening between us.
Both people have choices.
Both people have responsibilities.
And sometimes those choices mean the relationship cannot continue as it once did.
That doesn’t necessarily mean love has disappeared.
I can love someone without agreeing with everything they do.
I can forgive somebody without pretending nothing happened.
I can miss someone without deciding that we belong in the same relationship again.
And someone can love me while recognizing that our relationship needs to change.
That last one is worth thinking about, isn’t it?
Because when we’re hurting, we sometimes interpret distance as proof that love wasn’t real.
But is it?
I’ve been considering Mark 10:21–22.
Jesus encountered a wealthy young man who wanted to know what he needed to do to inherit eternal life.
Scripture tells us that Jesus looked at him and loved him.
Then Jesus told him something the young man wasn’t willing to accept.
And the young man walked away grieving.
Now notice something.
Jesus loved him.
Jesus told him the truth.
And Jesus allowed him to make his choice.
Love was present.
Freedom was present.
And the outcome wasn’t what the young man had hoped for.
Jesus didn’t have to stop loving him to let him go.
Whew. ❤️
Now, beloveds, I don’t want us using that passage to pretend every difficult relationship has the same answer.
Some relationships need patient conversations.
Some need forgiveness.
Some need rebuilding.
Some need distance.
And some come to an end.
We cannot determine which simply by borrowing somebody else’s story.
But we can examine our hearts.
Am I staying because I love, or because I fear what leaving might mean?
Am I leaving because I’ve carefully considered what is happening, or because I want somebody to feel the pain I felt?
Have I mistaken forgiveness for an obligation to restore everything exactly as it was?
Have I confused unconditional love with unconditional access?
Those aren’t comfortable questions.
They’re Heart Check questions.
And grace belongs in the examination.
Because grace allows us to tell the truth without turning every mistake into a permanent identity.
It allows people room to grow.
And it allows us to acknowledge that loving someone doesn’t give us ownership of their decisions.
What struck me about Healing in Silence is that the person singing can still miss somebody while choosing not to return.
The longing hasn’t vanished.
The memories haven’t vanished.
But a decision has been made.
I wonder how many beloveds have experienced something similar.
Maybe you walked away.
Maybe somebody walked away from you.
Maybe you’re still deciding what love requires in a difficult situation.
Or perhaps you’ve learned that two people can care about one another even when their relationship is no longer what it used to be.
Here’s our Heart Check:
Can I love someone enough to honor both their freedom and my own?
Can I recognize that love isn’t proven by the number of things I’m willing to endure?
Can I allow a relationship to change without insisting that everything good about it must have been a lie?
And can I extend grace to myself and the other person while telling the truth about what happened?
Beloveds, I believe those questions deserve more than a hurried answer.
So let’s examine our hearts.
Not to find somebody to blame.
But to understand love a little more deeply.
Because love matters.
Freedom matters.
And so do you. ❤️
Cassandra 💜
#YourLifeMattersToMe
🎶 “Listen to Healing in Silence” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzQO_0JY5lA)
