Please read this post from livingpalm's blog! It moved me...gave me a sob in my throat. It goes right along with things I've been thinking and praying about - people, relationships & my relationship with the One who can fill me completely - and it ties into what some of us have been discussing/thinking on from last week's Sunday School class-dvd.
"For a woman to enjoy relationship, she must repent of her need to control and her insistence that people fill her." - Something I stumble over regularly...when I detect it in my own life and those close to me. Not stumble as in "happen-upon"...stumble as in catch-my-foot-in-it-and-fall-on-my-face in a puddle of self-loathing or bitter-frustration with another.
"...being safe and secure in her relationship with her Lord, she can risk being vulnerable with others and offer her true self." - That is what I want...that is what I am seeking...and finding! This is exciting and scary at the same time. Because, in so doing, we are free to love. Denise said the same thing yesterday in S.S. The thought was, when we give Him everything, especially our insecurity, we become secure in Him and we are "free to love." And, I have witnessed that in her life! Thank you, Denise!
"To love at all is to be vulnerable." - This is the scary part for me...scary because I feel like I've only been "practicing" at it...maybe not really loving in a way that leaves me vulnerable outside of my husband and my kids. Ultimately, that is just a selfish-love. Doing it His way doesn't seem so scary anymore and I can see where I have stepped out in faith to love a few in my life this way. He never has failed me. So why in the world can't I just get this!
I know I know...wait...keep going to Him...keep seeking Him with my whole heart and stop leaning on what I think I know. (Prov. 3:5-6)
Anyone else on this journey with me? Weigh-in and encourage with your thoughts, struggles, victories, insights.
Be like the all-loving, all-giving, all-forgiving, everything-I-have-is-yours kind of person who does not measure out love to others according to how they act or what they believe. - Nancy Heche
3 comments:
wow -- 'link love' is fun!!
I also struggle with being vulnerable in relationships. And I know what you are talking about – when we take our identity from God, the identity bestowed on us from the One who created us, the One who loves us beyond all comprehension, we should little care what mere humans may say or do to us. I know this, and have known this, but when people say or do mean things, it still HURTS.
Also, I have a hard time switching off my people-pleasing apparatus. I don’t know if I “insist that people fill me.” But I do insist that I do what is necessary to be liked. I must please, conform, be agreeable, quiet, obedient, compliant. I don’t know how to stop. I mean, I don’t want to be rude or disagreeable just for the sake of being “real.”
What is this supposed to look like, anyway? That is, loving, relationship, or whatever it is that you’re seeking. Is it action, or motive? Meaning, do you want to be doing something else, or do you want to have different reasons for doing things you already do now?
anonymous: Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!
"I don’t know how to stop. I mean, I don’t want to be rude or disagreeable just for the sake of being 'real.'" - thanks for your honesty.
"Is it action, or motive? Meaning, do you want to be doing something else, or do you want to have different reasons for doing things you already do now?" I guess it is some of both. I want to respond to, see and love others more like Christ responds, sees and loves. So, that would fall under action I guess.
And the "want-to" needs to come from Him: motive. If it is of me/self-focused then others would not be very loveable...at least not for very long. That may sound harsh but I've seen it in my own life and I'm currently observing it in another. When everything is about "filling ME" and "I-can-love-you-because-I-like-the-way-
I-feel-when-I'm-with-you" then the love isn't lasting. Amy put this really well in a comment from Feb.
"I've thought about this issue before, about how God sees us with irrational love and how, when just for a moment, I glimpse people through this lens, I am overwhelmed with love and understanding....The key is in allowing that glimpse to actually change my behavior, and on a long-term basis. I think that requires dependence, since I know that I can only extend grace on my own strength for a very limited amount of time! :)"
There is more I want to say but, at this moment, there is a very loud - very needy - bi-polar 2 year old scrambling my thoughts!
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