stuff of life

I've been thinking a lot the last couple months about this business of loving people, what it really means to love. Sometimes there's part of me that wants to draw back, to distance myself from involvement and feeling and entering into a person's life and suffering more. To just say "No more, I'm done" and they move on and I don't think about them anymore. Because it's just HARD and messy and there aren't solid rules. And it takes a lot more sacrifice and effort than I sometimes want to give - much more than just having good feelings toward someone. And it means possibly failing. And it means my own heart my suffer in the process. Jesus suffered greatly in loving us. Shouldn't our loving look similar to that? I read that "Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken," and also, "Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer." If loving people becomes easy, is it really love? If there is not struggle and suffering, is my compassion genuine or merely a good feeling?