Unwanted & Wanting
It’s so easy to long for love, to look for it in human hearts and relationships, and to leave wanting.
It’s so easy to anticipate full acceptance, so hard to truly find it. So rare to find it for ourselves.
Have you ever been in a season where you so desperately wanted to be authentically yourself, so desperately wanted someone to hear you and truly see you and fully love you for you? Someone to look beyond the imperfections and know, witness, and appreciate your heart? Because they want to? Because they didn’t just “fall” in love with you and they don’t feel obligated to love - they intentionally long to be present in your life and have you be a part of theirs?
Maybe you feel like your life is open to them, but their heart isn’t open to you. Because the beautifully painful thing about love is the presence of mutual vulnerability. A relationship and trust that isn’t one-sided, that is fully desired and craved on both sides - that’s what makes love, love. And too often we find ourselves on one or the other side of this see-saw but rarely on both. It takes both to make it work.
We look to human hearts for validation. We secretly hope that the special person will notice the outfit or the pretty voice, the laughter and the eyes, and under a superficial guise of attraction, we hide our desire to be known and accepted for the things we try so desperately to hide - the breakdowns, the flaws, or the past pain. The annoyances, the anxieties, the abnormalities. We forget that love is only love when someone looks past all those things and into our hearts.
...under a superficial guise of attraction, we hide our desire to be known and accepted for the things we try so desperately to hide...
I was sitting in bed, wrestling with my own insecurities. I had just poured out my heart in my journal the night before, begging God to take my feelings away, to take away the hurt I felt from feeling like I sometimes hide behind a mask and am not seen for who I am in full. Frustrated that my anxieties stop me from being myself around some of the people I most want to know and love and be loved by. Crying inside because humans don’t always have the time or mind to discern that that’s how I feel.
And then, in a moment, I saw it. I saw the purpose of this battle that has been plaguing my heart for weeks, months, even years. It took this struggle for me to see the truth.
Maybe they never will. But just because humans never will doesn’t mean that I’m not loved. In fact, the way I am loved is better, deeper, farther than I could ever desire or fathom, bigger than anything a human could give. Because He doesn’t just love me out of obligation or because He likes parts of me and decided to try me out.
It’s because He’s so enraptured with me that He can't help but love me for me. In that moment of need, the God of the Universe wrapped His arms around me and began to whisper just how He feels about me.
~
He loves every ounce of me. He finds me cute. The little pieces and parts that make me, me. My constant giggles, my sensitivity, my little tunes as I dance around my room in bursts of excitement. My short kinky hair, my passionate rants, my stories, and my awkward humor. He loves my smile, my eyes, my toes and my fingers. He tells me that I am beautifully and wonderfully made, and He continually gives me the gifts of joy, comfort, and peace when I feel like I’m drowning. He is forever present, always putting me before Himself, gently walking with me, and carrying me when I feel like I can’t take one more step in a day. But he doesn’t just love the good, ‘cute’ parts of me. He sees the scars, the dirt, the unmade beds of my heart. When I hide from Him, afraid of what He’ll think or say He calls for me and patiently waits for my readiness to speak my heart honestly. He doesn’t shrink from my insecurities, doubts, and mistakes. Not from my dark past or uncertain future, my procrastination and distraction. He doesn’t forsake me*, even when I choose someone or something else over Him. When I’m angry and hurt, when I’m stubborn or alone, when I’m judgemental or afraid. Even when I’m frustrated with His plans and refuse to hear His voice for a time. He hurts, but He waits patiently for me to come back to Him. And yet? He looks beyond my brokenness and sees me for me. And He falls in love over and over again. Because He can’t help it.
He then makes me better. Being in His presence makes me want to heal and be more like Him. He takes my broken heart and mends it the way no human can. He bears with me through my squeals of pain as He sews me up, and stays up with me late in the night as I toss and turn, cry and heal. Being with Him gives me warm fuzzies and makes me feel safe. Accepted. Loved.
He loves me in and through my weaknesses, not just in spite of them. He craves my attention, longing for recognition, longing for commitment - a commitment that so many of us fail to give. You see, God suffers heartbreak too. He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, and we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted when what He was doing was carrying us and our pain.**
And then, to fully demonstrate that love, to prove that commitment, to seal it and establish it for all eternity, He gave the ultimate sacrifice.
He died for me, even when there wasn't much to like or find ‘cute.’ In spite of my imperfections, He loved, He saw potential, and He gave all He had to secure me for Himself. He lost Himself for me. While I rejected Him. While I was still a sinner. While we were still sinners. Yet Christ died for me - He died for us.***
Yes, because He doesn’t just love me. He didn’t just sit and cry and mend and die for me. He did and will for you too.
And He falls in love over and over again. Because He can’t help it.
Beloved, God is so incredibly personal. We’ve made Him so many things in our own minds - from tyrant to judge to evil or detached parent - when all He really wants to be is the love of our lives. Because we are already His. He’s gone so far as to die to show it. Most humans, even the best of them, won’t ever be asked to do the same. But Someone has already given everything just for the chance to know and be loved by you, hoping and praying and craving for your glance, your acceptance, your recognition. And He loved you before you even knew His name. He’s pursued you. He really, really wants you. And nothing that you were or are or will be can change that. Can we even begin to imagine, to fathom, to embrace that unchanging love? If only we could begin to taste it, I believe that we would be able to love those that walk into our lives more fully. But before we pour into others, we have to recognize and rejoice in the reality that we are loved first. And then, we can finally step out and be ourselves, ready to love and be loved the way we know our Heavenly Father and Friend loves us. And dearest, you deserve nothing less.
Joyfully yours,
Bel
*Hebrews 13:5
**Isaiah 53:4
***Romans 5:8
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