WE CANT LOVE ONE ANOTHER WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING GOD'S LOVE FOR US
The one thing I never understood was forgiveness. When someone hurts you emotionally or physically, the last thing you ever want to do is forgive them. For me, there was one person close to me in my life that the task of forgiving them seemed impossible. The amount of pain and hurt that had bottled up for so long meant that forgiveness seemed like it was never going to happen.
I always believed forgiveness was something you had to feel, and because I held onto so much pain, this feeling seemed non existent. The truth is that un forgiveness causes more pain than there initially was, even after years of hurt.
During this same period in my life, love felt pretty much non existent. It was there, but the pain just overpowered everything. There was so much devision and resentment that love seemed like a thing in the past. I longed to be loved because there had been so much missing for so long. What I didn't realise was that we were both broken people, and our brokenness was braking each other. We both longed for something, but we were both denying it from one another.
Something that no one ever taught me is that forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. You don't have to feel like forgiving someone to be able to do it. The power of forgiveness comes from God. It's a choice before God. During my time here in Nepal Gods taught me so much about the person I had refused to forgive for so long. We had both been seeking the same thing, but because there was so much hate in our lives, neither of us was willing to lay our pain down and forgive.
Although not one of us was going to admit it, we both missed the same thing in our lives. We were both denying each other of love. The way you give love after you've been hurt is through forgiveness, and to fail to forgive is to fail to love.
God showed me that because I had kept pushing this person away because of the pain, I had denied them the one thing that would have healed the both of us, and that was love. The one thing this person was wanting but was too scared to admit, was the chance to love me. They mist the relationship we once had. The closeness and the intimacy that use to be in the place of the resentment. This person simply wanted to hold me, like God had created them too, but I had denied them of this for too long, it caused wounds in both of our lives.
We were divided and our division was growing deeper. There was a love missing in both of our lives, and it was each others. If you feel like you've not been receiving love in your life, its probably because you haven't been giving it. I had stoped giving it because I had failed to forgive.
Although I have grown up being told that God loves me, its only recently that its gone from my head to my heart. Ive felt Gods love for me so immensely and I've witnessed his faithfulness and fulfilment of promises. God's love is truly unconditional and although so many people have told me this, you never really understand until you experience it for yourself. Gods shown me that he never intended for us to have to prove ourselves to him. We've never needed to work for or earn his love. All he wants is for us to rest in him, and for him to rest in us. He's infinitely loving and consistently full of mercy and grace. He simply wants to hold us and have a close intimate relationship with us based on love. This is what a heart of a father is about. They long to simply hold us, and that's what I had been denying mine for so long. A chance to show his love for me. I needed to give him the gift of letting him love me.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me // John 17:22-23
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