love letter

dear God,

i was reading about boundaries today, and it started talking about love.

"our ability to give and respond to love is our greatest gift.
the heart of God fashioned in His image is the center of our being.
its ablities to open up to love and to allow love to flow outward are crucial to life."

and i started thinking about all of the love,
i have so apparently been surrounded with
yet i continue to let myself mope
as if its presence is somehow
sometimes not worth acknowledging
as if the pain should be greater than there
as if i would be letting my guard down to believe otherwise.

"many people have difficulty giving and receiving love because of hurt and fear.
having closed their heart to others, they feel empty and meaningless."

by shying away from expressing and being who i really am--
in settings like the workplace, the shelter, the rehab center--
am i closing my heart off from even being seen or recognized by others?

"the Bible is clear about both functions of the heart:
the receiving of grace and love inward and the flow outward."

i've tried to practice that--but oddly enough i've tried to do so
while keeping my own heart hidden away
protected by my insecurities and lies

im not saying that fear isnt valid
im just saying--
that maybe something else should be more so.

"listen to how the Bible tells us how we should love: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...Love your neighbor as yourself' (Matt 22:37, 39).

how do i love others without first learning how to love myself
how do i love God with my all,
when my 'all' is too preoccupied with everything else
how do i expect my 'neighbor'
to feel anything more than the same insecure
unsteady identity to me, as i limit myself to feeling towards them

"and how we should receive love: 'we have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. we are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. as a fair exchange speak as to my children--I open wide your hearts also.'(2 Cor 6:11-13)

i think that would fall under
my cynic spectrum of:
'easier said than done'

"our loving heart, like our physical one, needs an inflow as well as an outflow of lifeblood. and like its physical counterpart, our heart is a muscle, a trust muscle. This trust muscle needs to be used and exercised, if it is injured it will slow down or weaken."

like my atrophied upper arm strength D:

"we need to take responsibility for this loving function of ourselves and use it. Love concealed or love rejected can both kill us.

many people do not take ownership for how they resist love. they have a lot of love around them, but do not realize that their loneliness is a result of their own lack of responsiveness.

often they will say, 'others' love can not 'get in.'

this statement negates their responsbility to respond. we maneuver subtly to avoid responsibility in love; we need to calm out hearts as our property and work on our weaknesses in that area."

lines like that make me realize just how much responsibility i try to dodge in every form.

"it will open up life to us."

and lines like that unblur the picture a little bit
of the consequences that disowning those responsibilities can have
would have, quite possibly has

"we need to take responsibility for all of the above area of our souls. these lie within our boundaries. but taking care of what lies within our boundaries isn't easy; neither is allowing other people to take care of what lies within their boundaries."

sometimes it feels like a more frustrating cause if we were trying to get into those boundaries we werent allowed to be messing with to begin with--self righteousness taking importance over love. not to confuse with love through honesty as any less valid...but honesty comes with love. sometimes we ourselves are so caught up in the chance to say 'i told you so' that we forget that saying so, either verbally or non verbally, easily warps our original good intention into just another grey brick on the lovely path to self righteousness


"setting boundaries and maintaining them is hard work."

we've got another understatement.

..but at least we know it's understood.

im falling asleep at this point so i feel like im getting jumbled and my points are no longer clear.


but i guess i just wanted to say that this letter,
and any more after it in my journal
will my my literal attempt to respond
first in words,
since they're the best way i know how,
and hopefully followed soon
by action
and love.

in your holy name i pray that we all pray--
amen,