To Be Loved - Part 2

Here’s an audio version if you prefer…

I was thinking about what my big takeaway was from my adventure to Denver a couple weekends ago and here's what I've landed on... I need to become even more comfortable with being on the receiving end of peoples' generosity and love. People really do want to help each other and show love in tangible ways.

As I just typed that I was struck particularly about the truth of becoming more comfortable with being the receiver rather than the giver. I think a lot of people might struggle with that, in American society especially. I think it has a lot to do with feeling in control (I say, "feeling" because I don't believe that we actually ever are in control much, if at all)! But I was also struck because over the last year and half or so that I've been seeing a counselor, one of the main struggles I've had in my life is to be more intimate. Connected with that is my ability or really my struggle to receive love. Again, I think part of it is control and another part is my tendency towards perfectionism - which shows itself through the expectations I hold for myself and others. So if there's a chance that in risking intimacy, in risking being loved it may not look how I think it should or I get too scared to do or say something that's intimate, then my psyche or ego or whatever gets all freaked out and convinces myself to continue to veer away and not take the risk.

I'm not sure what it is exactly that I'm so scared might happen -- rejection? Ridicule or being laughed at? Failure of some sort? Man, my list keeps getting longer and longer! Anyone else out there in the stratosphere with these kinds of fears? Or do you have your own, unique and special fears?! :)

My good friend Carole who has always loved me well.

I can remember last year at my therapist's office nearing the end of our time together and hearing her say with deep emotion in her voice, "why don't you just let him love you, Sally?" I started crying because I didn't know why, but I knew I needed to start taking the risk and trying to accept Kim's love more fully. Over the last year that's what I was doing, trying to accept love that I'd struggled previously to accept, and as I did I was able in turn to return it. I still had a long way to go, but we did make progress.

Parts of me feel like I failed miserably, and I failed Kim. Other parts of me pray that God will grant me another relationship in my lifetime where I can continue to learn how to both love and be loved.

In the meantime in saying YES more often, I am putting myself in situations where I have to receive. Usually it's simply friends being helpful - with rides and other things I might need. But others have gone above and beyond, and sometimes it's hard to feel deserving or not burdensome. Those closest to me remind me that they receive much from me as well, and I do need to remember that. And I also need to just quit keeping score. Not that I literally keep tabs, but I am aware when I feel like I've received a lot more than I've given. It's uncomfortable and sometimes makes me feel like I'm looked upon as being weak or feeble - and I hate feeling that way. I can remember Kim getting so frustrated early on in our marriage because I was just learning how to be a strong woman (I was only 19 remember), and Kim always wanted to be the gentleman and open doors for me and things like that and I'd always be like, "I can do it!" Ridiculous, both of us. Neither one of us could just be ok with how the other wanted to be.

So receiving, being loved, being served, being helped... It's hard. It can be uncomfortable, particularly when someone is overly helpful. It's humbling. But ultimately...it's love.

“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 MSG