Learning To Receive Love
By, Pearl Mathias
For most of my life, I have found myself dissatisfied in the relationships I have chosen to be in. I always thought I could love people into being better versions of themselves. Sometimes I let them walk all over me by justifying their unhealthy behaviour with “They didn’t know better.” I didn’t know what it meant to set up healthy boundaries and, as a result, I unconsciously made it easy for people to have access to parts of me that were raw and vulnerable. Over time I realised these very people did not have the capacity to honour those areas of my life.
In all these relationships, I operated from a place of self-sufficiency because I felt that God couldn’t be bothered about this area of my life. It seemed too small a detail for Him to pay attention to. I felt that as long as I loved the people He placed in my life in a pure, wholesome way, He would bless what I was doing. But I also believed it was ultimately up to me to make these relationships work.
Toward the end of my last relationship, I began to take stock of my life and my choices. I started to realize that I was way off when it came to relationships and God’s vision for relationships in my life. I went through seasons of trying to fill the void that unfulfilling relationships had created, seeking approval and validation in my quest for love. These preoccupations caused me to forget there was more to relationships than simply being with someone. That’s when I began to feel God’s nudge; I realized He was definitely more interested in my relationships than I thought.
During prayer, I decided to bring my relationship questions to the Lord, something I’d never done before. I asked Him, “God, are you in this relationship?”, “What is Your vision for me?”, “How can I be more like you in this situation?” I wanted to understand what He wanted me to unlearn about my ways of being in relationships and make room for His ways.
A verse from the book of Revelation illuminated my heart: “Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first.” (2:4 NAB). Up until I read this, I had known God by many names—my Father, my Saviour, my Shepherd—but never as my Lover.
I didn’t even fathom that God could love me in this way, that He wanted to love me in this way, that I was already loved in this way. It dawned on me that by filling my heart with all sorts of temporary people and pleasures, I was not allowing a lot of space for God to reveal His personal love for me. I was looking for love in all the wrong places because I didn’t know that I already had it. Jesus is the Lover of my soul and His love is mine to bask in and hold onto forever.
This revelation of God’s love for me sparked an interest in learning how to love like Him in all my relationships, not only in romantic relationships, but even in familial relationships and friendships. As I began reading and meditating on scripture, as well as books like St. John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility and Theology of the Body, I reflected more intentionally on what this love really looks like. I realized how different it was from the love that I had experienced growing up and from the love that I gave. I grew up consuming worldly expressions of love that focused on instant gratification, wanting to be in control, and mind games (like playing it cool, even when I’m feeling far from it). I realized a dissonance between the popular culture’s idea of love and love as it was meant to be.
My previous experiences of unhealthy love were born out of a culture where love is warped. Some of the effects of warped love are disrespect, manipulative behaviour, and a need to change the other person. I had experienced broken love, but through prayer and scripture I was finally learning what it meant to let go of my old ideas of love and receive God’s full and perfect love for me, finally allowing Him to reveal His vision for love in my life.
After my initial encounter with God’s call to return to my first love in the book of Revelation, the journey wasn’t always filled with clarity. I was still riddled with doubts and fears, which led me to ask, “Do I deserve to be loved like this?”, “Can healthy love even exist in the world today?”, “How can I change the popular culture’s narrative of love?” These were difficult questions to bring before God. I had been so used to operating on my own when it came to relationships that it was hard not to take matters into my own hands when I thought God was not working. I knew deep in my heart, though, that I didn’t want to do this alone. I knew that if I wanted to do this love thing well, I wasn’t capable of going at it without grace.
Accepting this grace took a long time that I like to call a “refining period,” which was also a defining period. It was during this time that I was especially asked to walk by faith because I couldn’t see what God was doing. It seemed like absolutely nothing was happening, but I trusted God was working even in the most ordinary moments of my day. During prayer, time and time again God spoke His truth to me through the Word, reminding me that my heart was created for Him alone and nothing else will truly satisfy.
Though I’m often tempted to leap ahead of God and then ask Him to come along, I’m now trying to slow down, and sometimes even stop and be still, to better sense where God is leading me. I’ve realized that something beautiful happens in the stillness: when I quiet down the noise of my distractions and desires, I am better attuned to what He is trying to tell me through gentle whispers. It often sounds something like, “You cannot love perfectly if you don’t first know perfect love.” I’m constantly reminded that perfect love is found in God alone. I can’t possess this wholesome, abundant, pure, selfless love unless I first sit in His presence and learn to receive it. I have to learn to let it wash over me completely. And, as I do this, I begin to see myself as His chosen one, His daughter, His beloved.
Although this sounds beautiful, and it absolutely is, learning to receive love has not come easily. Some days my heart, mind, and soul are awake to God’s Love and easily receptive to Him, other times busyness, anxiety and fear cripple my mind. On these days, the process of sitting in His presence and allowing myself to feel His love is rather painful. There are times when it takes an act of will to allow God’s love to embrace every inch of me. I’ve realized that, despite how I’m feeling on a particular day, His truth has slowly filled my thoughts as well. My guilt, shame, and regrets are enveloped in His love, in His grace. In these moments, I know what it feels like to be fully seen, known, and loved. It is a love so different than any human encounter can possibly accomplish.
I’m learning that I can’t really love well on my own, but ever since I’ve started inviting God into my relationships I feel less of a need for control. Though I would definitely like some certainty in terms of how my relationships will progress, I’m learning to trust that God knows what He’s doing even when I may not see how the pieces fit together just yet. As a result of this trust, I find myself offering people more grace to be themselves and make their own choices, even when it sometimes means having to put my own desires on hold. I’ve also learned that it’s not my job to save people; I can only love them and through my love point them to the One who saves. I’m learning to choose patience in my relationships, taking the long way with God rather than the seemingly enjoyable shorter way on my own.
Loving well is a grace that comes from the Lord because He is Love. I now know that it’s only when I allow myself to soak in this Love and let it seep into every fiber of my being that I will be able to pour it out onto the world.
