"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us." 1 John 4:16
When I think about how I've sought after love in the wrong men. How I've sought after love in the wrong spaces and even how I manage to push people that I know love me away out of fear. To know that a perfect being loves me so purely and so much that He chose to die on the cross for me lights a fire in me that I have never felt. To know that He chooses to love me through my fears is everything to me. The last blog I wrote about love and I normally don't talk about this subject publicly that much but for whatever reason this season is making me press into it. To hear about love, want it and seek after it is one thing but to realize that it's already present and active in my life hits differently.
The love of Christ has been a consuming fire for me recently. I recently had to face a lifechanging situation that all of my life I've managed to "deal" with but until recently I hadn't realized that it impacted me in so many ways I wasn't aware of. One of which is the realization that I have a hard time accepting love and knowing what genuine love looks like.
"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5
Without going into too much detail I've spent majority of my life living in fear due to cycles of abuse. Self preservation and toxic patterns of isolation became my norm. Fear of ending up in more abusive situations, fear of being abandoned or emotionally or physically abused has crippled me. Until recently I haven't been able to address this fear head-on. As a result my idea and views on love have been unhealthy and toxic to be honest.
Through the years I have prayed and asked God to heal, restore, deliver and free me from the effects of my pasts. Years went by and I sometimes lost hope and honestly believed that this was how my life would always be. I believed that I would always be broken by my past, always fear love, never fully accept it and always have to appear strong and ignore how my past effected me as a child and now as an adult.
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3
But God saw otherwise. When I say God is a restorer of broken things, especially His children; I'm a living witness. He took someone who dealt with physical and emotional abuse as a child, battled suicidal thoughts as a teenager, depression, fear and anxiety as an adult and decided to work all things together for my good because of His great love for me.
I said all that to say that because of my past it is extremely hard for me to accept love. It is even harder for me to accept a love I didn't earn first. To be loved, to be able to accept love and to feel secure are my greatest desires. I always thought a man would come along and help me in this area**. I thought it would take marriage for me to know what love looked like and to finally learn to accept it.
In a way I was right but I was also so so wrong. I desperately craved love and attention from men. It wasn't enough for me to have a earthly dad that said he loved me and tried his best to show it. I needed more, I desired more. I needed to earn it, it had to feel like an accomplishment. There's no way I could just be loved. So I thought. I sought after love in the wrong things, people and places trying my best to earn it, work for it and prove myself worthy of it; not knowing that the love I so desperately craved was right in front of me this whole time. I've had a relationship with Jesus for sometime now. I read my bible, I do all of the "Christian things" but up until recently I didn't understand or wasn't impacted by what I know now about the magnitude of His love for me. How I can be completely bare, vulnerable and free at His feet with all of my fears laid out before Him and He STILL chooses to love and care for me. I don't have to present my best self. I don't have to act it out. I can just be.
"Who am I that you are mindful of me" Psalm 8:4
If you're like me searching for love in all the wrong places, I want you to pause. Pause and sit and reflect on the fact that you are loved by Jesus. Pause and let yourself be loved. Think about how even on your best day you couldn't earn it yet He so graciously extended His love to you. Think about how He desires to have a relationship with you. Think about His great sacrifice for you. Think about how He is pursuing you even now. He's available to us right now in this moment. Ready and willing to meet us in the dark places of our lives to bring us hope. To restore us.
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—" Ephesians 2:4-5
Let yourself be loved. If you don't know Jesus, this is your opportunity. Jesus is aware of your struggles, your sin and your shame. He knows it all. He knows the pain of your past and He knows the effects it has on you. He also wants you to know that there is redemption when you accept Him as Lord. He wants to free you from the bondage of sin and shame and invite you to be in relationship with Him. Let yourself be loved and accept Jesus into your heart ♡
"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Romans 10:9-11
Let yourself be loved.
Love Himself is available to you today, invite Him into your heart ♡
"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
1 John 4:10
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
**A man did come along 2000 something years ago to help, His name is Jesus ♡