"Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness... Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering."
If to spare us pain and discomfort God allows evil to continue in us, he is not loving. Kindness gives in and cuts us some slack while love holds our feet to the fire until it accomplishes what is best for our ultimate well-being. Kindness removes obstacles to our contentment while love remakes us into what we are intended to be. This remaking is far from comfortable. It often requires tearing out walls and scraping away mold and rot before rebuilding. But this is what God does. He loves us so much that he will cut out the cancer or pull the tooth in spite of our pain. He wants so much for us to share eternal life with him that he is determined to burn out of our souls everything that is not eternal, even if we are painfully scorched in the process.
--The Heart of The Chronicles of Narnia --
by Thomas Williams
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