learning to truly love

Maybe it's just me, but when I analyze the way I think and my emotional responses to things I often think that I am alone in facing certain struggles.  It's the whole comparison thing when you think that others have life more figured out than you or others don't struggle with doubting themselves or being disciplined each day.  We think that we are alone and that no one will understand.  We carefully try to hide our weaknesses and appear as flawless as possible.  We may choose to reveal a few of them so that we can keep it real but there some things about us that we don't want everyone to know.

It is so comforting to me that God knows all about me.  He knows the way I think, he knows me in my worst moments, he knows my past, present and future and he still loves me.  He always has and always will.  In fact, he loved me at my worst.  We cannot say that about most people.  Most people love those who love them back.  But God is so amazingly different!  He loved me even when I stood against him and didn't care to know him at all.  It's a powerful love.  It's a love that changed me.  It is a love that will never die.

Sometimes, when we are getting to know someone new, we have this underlying feeling that maybe some little thing about us might cause them to not like us anymore.  Sometimes, we can be so concerned about how we are being perceived or what people think of us that we aren't focused enough on loving others and knowing them.  

I mentioned recently a late night talk with my best friend, my husband.  I love that I can open up to him with just about anything.  I am confident that he will continue to love me.  I believe this is the kind of love that we should show to one another as God's people in all of our relationships.  My husband is someone that I deeply trust and I love to bounce things off of him.  It helps me to grow and to think more about why I do what I do and whether or not I am being Christlike when I do it.

And so this was the topic and one of the things that came out of the conversation was that I realized that I think far too much of myself when I talk with other people.  It doesn't always happen but sometimes it does and I am more aware of it now.  Sometimes I can get so concerned with how I sound and what I say and am I being witty?  Do people like me?  Or do I have just the right thing to say at just the right moment?  And the truth is, no, I don't.  And sometimes, by God's grace actually, I get a little tongue-tied and the words don't always come out right or they don't come at all and I might be tempted to be hard on myself for that.  But I think that would be my pride.  Instead, I have taken it as an opportunity for growth.  

I long to consistently put self aside and minister to others with Christlike love that doesn't think of self at all.  I know I haven't reached it and may never completely this side of heaven.  But I see glimmers and the beauty of it keeps me going.