Learning Love. Learning Healing. A Guest Post

Speaking of BRAVE … My courageous friend Nicole is learning a lot about unconditional love..

There. I said it.

And I’ve worked for it all my life. But I never knew how hard I had worked for it and how much it cost until recently.

I lost a group of friends a few years ago and it rocked my world. It seemed to me that there was a misunderstanding that had caused the whole messy debacle and no amount of undoing the misunderstanding was fixing it. I didn’t learn of the misunderstanding until after the beautiful baby shower they threw me, but on that day I could feel that things weren’t right. I could tell that none of them wanted to be there and I just didn’t understand why. And I didn’t understand, weeks after the event, why I was hearing from others that these ladies had been making fun of me at the very shower they threw me. They were laughing at me and making jokes about me. To say I was hurt was a complete understatement. My heart actually broke.

It broke because I lost friends. And they stayed friends.

It broke because I walked away alone.

It broke because I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. What had I done to these ladies that warranted their treatment of me? Surely, I wasn’t enough of something I should have been.

Nice enough?

Generous enough?

Caring enough?

Thoughtful enough?

Fun enough?

Hadn’t I loved them enough? And this is what I got? Hadn’t I given enough time and attention to them? And in return I got jokes and laughter at my expense?

Surely, if I had done all the right things, this would not have happened.

Because they were obviously still enough for each other. It was me there was something wrong with.

And I began to believe that about myself. I believed that all the work I had done to be liked by these ladies wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t enough. Because I couldn’t do enough to keep these friendships.

This thinking began to change the way I viewed myself and friendships. I began to doubt my ability to be good enough, for anyone.

For friends.

For my husband.

For God.

For anyone I might come in contact with. I’m even talking about people on the street. Seriously. This self loathing went deep.

I was always so afraid I wasn’t good enough and when they, any person, close or an acquaintance, found out just how not enough I was, they’d leave me, too.

So, then, recently when another friend seemed to misunderstand me and another friendship was forever changed, I saw just how broken I was in this area. I finally saw what had become of my desire to be known and to be loved.

I kept trying to earn it. I kept believing that I could do enough to make someone care for me. If I dropped anything and everything and listened to their troubles I would be valuable to them. If I went out of my way to show care, they would notice me as a truly great friend. If I was able to give them whatever they needed, they would know I was a selfless and loyal friend. I kept telling myself there most certainly were things I could do to earn love.

This left me so tired. Deeply tired. Deeply sad. Deeply believing a lie about myself. I am only good enough if I do enough for the other person. But if I don’t have much to offer them, there is no way they will care for me. Love me.

And I realized, I got this message long, long ago. Somewhere along the way I believed that love is earned. It is not unconditional and it is not freely given. It is to be worked for and sought after and held onto. And if I let my guard down, if I release my grip ever so slightly, the relationship can fall right out of my grasp. And I, again, am a failure.

Finally, now, I’m getting a sense of how completely untrue this is. I will still be misunderstood. I will probably still be a joke to someone. I will still likely make people laugh when I’m trying to be anything but funny.

But….

I’m learning. 

I’m learning to trust that my husband loves me despite all my flaws. Which he sees. On a daily basis. After feeling like a failure in our relationship one way or another, I’ve asked him if he wishes he hadn’t married me. And even when he tells me that he has never had that thought, I have doubted. But it is this kind of love that is slowly washing over my torn and bruised heart, seeping in and giving it some life. Making it beat again. God could not have given me a more faithful man to heal this part of me.

I’m learning about God’s grace. And because of his grace he loves me unconditionally. Or is it the other way around? I’m not a theologian or even a very good believer, it seems. Cause there is a lot about the simple message of the Gospel that I have missed. I’ve been working tirelessly, endlessly, desperately to earn a love that simply can’t be earned. Becoming a mother has taught me this. As I lay in bed with my girls before they go to sleep, I often ask them these questions:

Baby girl, how much do I love you?  With all your heart. 

Will that ever change? No.

Can you do anything to make me love you less? No (And then they usually proceed to rattle off some of what they consider to be the worst behaviors and ask if any of those things would make me love them less.)

No, my love for you will never change. When you are good, I love you. When you make poor choices, I love you. When you are silly, I love you. When you are upset, I love you. When you show kindness to others, I love you. When you won’t share with your baby brother, I love you.

It simply cannot ever change. A mama’s love is just like that.

And so it is with God. He tells me that when I’m doing anything and nothing, he loves me. And before I was able to do anything or nothing, he loved me. Just as is true from the moment I came to know one of my babies was growing in my belly.

Love is not earned. It actually is freely given. This is what I’m learning about love. This is what is healing me.

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Bio: Nicole currently lives in the Middle East with her husband and three children. She spends her time learning a new language and culture, which is both exciting and straight up scary. As she says in her blog, at this time she is exactly where she expected to be and it looks nothing like she thought it would look like. So, to make sense of it all, she’s started blogging. She hopes to be an encouragement to others and share a laugh every once in awhile. And she hopes to learn a lot more about God, about this journey he has her on, and a lot more about how deeply he loves. You can check out her writing at www.growingmeplusthree.com.