Relationships - Ready For The Real Deal?
"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." -- C.S. Lewis
During my period of recuperation, I took the courage to revisit my "cobwebbed" multiply account and discovered a few gem entries by my network of friends. One of it was by a sister from Church about love. The topic was like a smack to my heart and so relevant to the current issues of my life at this moment. With her generous permission, I've adapted the above quote and some of her words in this entry. Thanks, Sista!
I feel that God is gently and lovingly peeling off the layers of barriers surrounding my heart as it seeks for the truths pertaining to the issues of intimacy. I've laid my heart bare to my Abba Father during a recent episode of heartaches I was experiencing from a relationship that I've been pursuing. It wasn't the BGR (boy-girl-relationship) kind but I was no less perplexed. A perceived failure in this relationship one (not so) fine day caused me to take a step back and re look at the relationships in my life. A shifting of my life's paradigms is again in progress.
As I read my friend’s blog entry, what hit home was her analogy of a BGR, "Imagine if someone pursued you because they wanted to hold your hand or have someone to go to the movies with, wanted someone to be intimate with or because all of their friends had someone to do those things with - that person would be pursuing the privileges of a relationship while missing the point of the relationship: YOU, the person."
So I question my own intentions of what I want in a friendship of any kind, trying to rationalize the reasons I hold on to any of my past relationships. I asked God to search my heart. Was I genuinely interested in them or were they pursued for perceived benefits that I would get out of. Was there any love involved? Or was it just lust?
The long list of definitions of love vs lust in my previously entry of the same name made it very clear. Simply put, lust is about self – selfish desires, selfish ambitions, self-centredness, the “what about me?” mentality. How about a nice one-liner? “Love gives & lust takes.”
God, through His word, tells us how meaningless our existence would be without love. Even the most selfless causes and greatest sacrifices are nothing if they are not done out of love.
Like my friend, I'm challenged to reflect upon the relationships in my life. If there are any that are self-seeking, it's time to change and appropriate my attitude towards them. I foresee that it is going to be a liberating and life-changing experience.
At this “layer” where I am, I’m first learning to let go. If I truly love a person, I don’t have to make him, or her, my possession. That's just my insecurity at work, and besides, I have no such rights. Yet I will still continue to shower my love on this person. The saying goes, “you can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.” Love naturally expresses itself in giving – giving of things, time, attention, and of oneself etc. I’d rather make myself vulnerable, then to become “unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable”.
There are many more changes to come. I’m thankful that God still loves me and desire to help me to change. It would no doubt be painful, letting go and all. There’s always the fear of losing everything, but I shall not be deceived. I’d rather that my love be true and approved by my Abba Father. Moreover, how can I be losing out in anything if I have God, since God is love?
During my period of recuperation, I took the courage to revisit my "cobwebbed" multiply account and discovered a few gem entries by my network of friends. One of it was by a sister from Church about love. The topic was like a smack to my heart and so relevant to the current issues of my life at this moment. With her generous permission, I've adapted the above quote and some of her words in this entry. Thanks, Sista!
I feel that God is gently and lovingly peeling off the layers of barriers surrounding my heart as it seeks for the truths pertaining to the issues of intimacy. I've laid my heart bare to my Abba Father during a recent episode of heartaches I was experiencing from a relationship that I've been pursuing. It wasn't the BGR (boy-girl-relationship) kind but I was no less perplexed. A perceived failure in this relationship one (not so) fine day caused me to take a step back and re look at the relationships in my life. A shifting of my life's paradigms is again in progress.
As I read my friend’s blog entry, what hit home was her analogy of a BGR, "Imagine if someone pursued you because they wanted to hold your hand or have someone to go to the movies with, wanted someone to be intimate with or because all of their friends had someone to do those things with - that person would be pursuing the privileges of a relationship while missing the point of the relationship: YOU, the person."
So I question my own intentions of what I want in a friendship of any kind, trying to rationalize the reasons I hold on to any of my past relationships. I asked God to search my heart. Was I genuinely interested in them or were they pursued for perceived benefits that I would get out of. Was there any love involved? Or was it just lust?
The long list of definitions of love vs lust in my previously entry of the same name made it very clear. Simply put, lust is about self – selfish desires, selfish ambitions, self-centredness, the “what about me?” mentality. How about a nice one-liner? “Love gives & lust takes.”
God, through His word, tells us how meaningless our existence would be without love. Even the most selfless causes and greatest sacrifices are nothing if they are not done out of love.
Like my friend, I'm challenged to reflect upon the relationships in my life. If there are any that are self-seeking, it's time to change and appropriate my attitude towards them. I foresee that it is going to be a liberating and life-changing experience.
At this “layer” where I am, I’m first learning to let go. If I truly love a person, I don’t have to make him, or her, my possession. That's just my insecurity at work, and besides, I have no such rights. Yet I will still continue to shower my love on this person. The saying goes, “you can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.” Love naturally expresses itself in giving – giving of things, time, attention, and of oneself etc. I’d rather make myself vulnerable, then to become “unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable”.
There are many more changes to come. I’m thankful that God still loves me and desire to help me to change. It would no doubt be painful, letting go and all. There’s always the fear of losing everything, but I shall not be deceived. I’d rather that my love be true and approved by my Abba Father. Moreover, how can I be losing out in anything if I have God, since God is love?
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