Recently I have been confronted with a different angle on loving. I have a few friends who have continued to be a bit difficult to love. I don't know if you have any friends like that or if you are one who finds it difficult to let people love you. Lately, I have come across more people who seem to struggle with accepting love.
For the majority of us, accepting love is not a big deal. In today's society, the hardest part for some of us regarding accepting love, is slowing down and taking time to notice that we are being loved. Have you noticed how hard it is to have a friend now days. When I think of a friend, my mind goes back to being a kid. Your friend was the one who was always around, in thick and thin. If you got into trouble, your friend would say he was part of the issue so you wouldn't have to pay the price alone. You ran together, you got muddy together, you would lay on the grass in the summer and talk about your dreams and share your heart. If your friend had chores to do, you would help out so both of you could go off and explore when they were done. Everything you had was theirs and everything they had was yours. You knew, no matter what, you could count on them not only in fun times but also when times were tough.
Times have changed and friends are rare. Have you noticed how hard it is to find a person who will regularly return a phone call or hit reply on the email you sent? Have you noticed how most contact is made by you and that friends find it hard to call you. Being a friend has become a lost art. I probably shouldn't call it an art because it seems so natural and plain normal. I wonder where all the friends have gone? Everyone is just so busy that being a friend is something many people don't have time to be. That is so sad.
That is one side of the coin. The other side is that we have people in our lives that we want to be close to, that exhibit personalities that draw us in. We see so much in them that triggers our "You are fascinating and I really like you" button. It may be hard for us to understand why they seem like they don't want to be friends. It can make us look at ourselves over and over again, trying to understand why they seem to find us unlikeable. In many cases, we are very wrong. In many cases we have to not give up and just keep sending love their way.
The few friends I mentioned in the beginning have had tough lives, lives we may know nothing about. When some people look into their personal mirror, they see a lifetime of hurt, rejection, pain and disappointment. What they don't understand is that we see them as they are now. Not only that, but they may find it hard to believe that we love them now and no matter what the past, our love for them won't change.
I was trying hard to reach out to one such person and during my prayer and Bible reading time, God put the following on my heart. I sent this to her in an email.
"Basically you have to love you first of all. Your worth and value and "love-ability" starts with you loving yourself. Your "love-ability" is not determined by those around you. You are on the wrong path when you see your worth by how others treat you. If you evaluate your worth based on how people, who may be not connected to God or may even be plain mean and hurtful, treat you then you are allowing yourself to be evaluated by those incapable of evaluating. It would be like allowing a bowling instructor to attempt to repair your broken leg. If you were to let them attempt to make the repair, how foolish would you be?
People see people now, for who they are today. I can't see anyone as they used to be. If a person was extremely overweight and now fit, they are seen for who they are now but they never stop seeing themselves as out of shape and think everyone has that same view. But they don't.
They have to give people a chance and let them love them. From my point of view, as with my friend, it is frustrating to love someone and continually have it not accepted. If I didn't care so much about people I might give up and I am sure others have. Think of what it might feel like to those who love you but find that their caring gets downplayed - frustrating maybe"?
My friend emailed back and suggested I put our conversation on the blog. Here is part of her response.
"( I ) had not thought about the fact that others see me now, not how I have been - not my childhood, not how the ex did or does behave. And who cares since he is a certifiable (not so nice guy).
The way you put it, every day, every encounter is a new beginning. Fresh opportunity. That is how successful people succeed. They don't carry old baggage around with them. They drop it and move forward to fully embrace and live the next moment and opportunity God gives.
I hope you put this on your website. I will keep it to read it often to stay the healthy course. Much love - healthy love! And what joy to have healthy relationships with good guys."
I am doing this in an effort to reach out to anyone who finds that life has made it hard for them to "accept" love from others. Of course we have to be wise about it but also wise to not shut it out. Some of the friends I have thought of while writing this have endured horrible lives. I have a friend that I have known for 15 years and don't know how this person even smiles. But this person does smile, helps and loves everyone around and somehow has managed to accept being loved by others.
I am sure it is not as easy as I might make it sound but there are people around who want to love you. Love is a gift from God and a gift He want each of us to experience.
When I used to talk with kids more often, I tried to create mental pictures. Picture yourself at an outside train depot, maybe like in an old western. See yourself standing there with your suitcases. The red one is filled with great times, the green one with fun memories of vacations, the yellow one filled with memories of a broken marriage, the grey one has memories of being severely disciplined for no reason. The train pulls up to the platform and the conductor welcomes you to board. You noticed the plaque on the front of the steam engine reads "Destination - your future". You are ready to board and stop to think if you really want to take all those suitcases, all that baggage with you as you travel forward to your future. You are a decision away from leaving some of it behind. Do you really want to take all that junk to your new life?
I can only tell you this, God loves you more than you can ever imagine. God sees each of you as being wonderfully made. You can't argue with that, He made you. We have been talking about love quite a bit and you must have noticed He is pretty big on it. Yes, we are told to love God and to love your neighbor, but I say to do that well, we must be able to love ourselves. I cannot imagine that seeing us missing out on being loved is how He wants any of us to live. You may have to picture leaving the baggage on the train depot platform everyday for a while, or maybe every hour, but someday you might be surprised that you have stopped thinking about those old bags.
You are a person just like me. We have ups and downs, successes and failures. We all have things we like about ourselves and things we really don't care for. Some of us are tall and some short, some wide and thin. We are all in the same boat. We are all trying to get though life being good to those around us. We all want to be loved.
Let us all reach out to grasp those same goals, starting with loving ourselves first. If there is someone in your life that you care a great deal about, but they are finding it difficult to accept your love. Be patient, don't give up for you may not know what life has dealt them. As I am writing this I want to be clear that I am talking about good and honest Christian love for one another. I am not advising anyone pushing an inappropraite love on another person.
God bless you all and may He fill your life with love.