Love-Well

"Try not to confuse "attachment" with "love". Attachment is about fear and dependency... Love without attachment is the purest love because it isn't about what others can give you because you're empty. It is about what you can give others because you're already full." -Yasmin Mogahed

I've been looking back at my relationship with God over the past couple days, taking time to really remember and wonder at the things He has done in my life. He has taught me so many things and brought me out of so many damaging situations. The most important thing I have learned over the past few years, without competition, is how to love.

There is so much truth to the saying, hurt people hurt people. You would never toss around a piece of broken glass and expect to be free of cuts. It would be absurd to get into a car that has been totaled and think it is going to run normally. Why then are we so quick to ask people who have been bruised and broken to love well? Until we receive healing our wounds, our brokenness, will always be the lens through which we view the rest of the world.

I can remember a time in my life when I had absolutely zero capacity to care about anyone but myself. It didn't matter how much I said I loved a person I would undoubtedly end up acting in a way that was the complete opposite of love. I was living my life out of fear; fear of failure, fear of losing people, fear of losing myself. When fear is a driving force in our lives love can never reign. Someone told me something that has since become a compass for my life; every choice you make in life is either out of fear or love. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's fear. When I find myself making decisions throughout my day sometimes I have to stop and think... am I operating out of fear right now or love? This is not an easy thing for me to do, I am not naturally in touch with myself on a deep level. If I find that I have acted out of fear (usually the fear of losing something) the next step is making it right. Sometimes that means talking to God about it and asking Him to help me in that area, other times it means asking forgiveness of the person I have hurt. I love how The Message bible puts it in 1 John 4:18-19 (emphasis added), 

"There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life- fear of life- fear of death, fear of judgement- is one not yet fully formed in love. We, though, are going to love- love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first."

Well formed love, banishes fear. We messed it up, humans in our own strength cannot give "well-formed love". We say hurtful things and react in fear too often to ever think our love is pure. The only love that is good and free of fear is the love we have been shown by God. The only reason I know what loving-well looks like is because He has shown me and I STILL mess it up on a daily basis. The difference between who I am now and who I was is now I know love, it doesn't mean I always act it out but I have the ability to recognize and take responsibility when I lash out. This means loving-well even when the person I am loving is incapable of doing so.

Here is where grace comes in. We are so quick to forget where we came from and the struggles we walked through before God healed us. There are going to be people in your life who do not have the capacity to love-well, they're broken and afraid; they will hurt you. In those moments we have a choice to make:
1) we fight back and say hurtful things
2) we say ouch that hurt, but I see where you are and I am choosing to love you because I see you're afraid and I remember a time when I could only act out fear because I knew no love.

This doesn't mean you are letting people walk all over you and it definitely does not mean that you stay in a relationship that is toxic.

This is mostly true in romantic relationships. If you are choosing to stay in a relationship that is harmful you aren't acting out of love. Fear paralyzes; fear of being alone or of hurting the other person, causing us to freeze when we should be running. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for a person, and yourself is walk away.

One of the very first steps to having well-formed love is learning how to love yourself. If you cant love yourself well there is absolutely no way you will ever be able to love someone else well. What you end up with is two people who hurt each other because they are terrified.

He is love, the very embodiment of it, everything He does is out of love. The purest, untainted, selfless love that has ever been. We were made like Him, in His very image, which means through Him we have the ability to BE love. But, before we can be love we have to know love... we have to know Him. Only then will our relationships be able to operate the way they were created to.