Receive His Love

Grief and Healing - Download the eBook

receivehislove

“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
– Henri J.M. Nouwen

Before you give, receive from Him who has every good thing to offer you. Before you love, allow yourself to be loved.

It is only by being loved first that our love can be grateful, humble and pure. For we do not love anymore in order to be loved. We do not love in order to boast of our righteousness. And we do not love merely because we have an obligation to do so.

We love because we have been loved. We give because we have been given much. We make others happy because we are filled with joy!

There Is No Greater Love

You’ve got to allow God to LOVE You
From the very core of you;
Not the form that everybody sees,
Not the mask that you want
Everybody else to see.
You’ve got to allow God to enter
The innermost chambers
Of who you are;
To taste and see the real essence
Of your being,
Not the strength that gets sapped up
In your difficulties,
Not the outer beauty that ages
And soon fades away.
For you are not your height
Nor your stature.
You are not the color of your skin.
You are not your capabilities
Or your disabilities.
You are not the tone of your voice,
Or the power of your stride.
You are not your health,
You are not your sickness.
You are not your wealth,
Or the greatness of your name.
You are not your good deeds,
You are not your sins.
You are not the fears
That cripple you,
Or the courage
That makes you win.
You are whom God made you to be.
You are a spark from that
Unquenchable Flame.
You are His,
You’ve always been and always shall be.
You are the apple of His eye,
You are His delight,
You are the vessel that catches
The great outpouring of His love.
You are His beloved,
The one He awaits and longs for,
The one He teaches,
The one He leads,
The one He watches over
As you slumber,
The one He rejoices over
As you awake.
What greater joy is there than to know
How marvelous you are
In His sight?
What greater peace than knowing
You will never be alone?
That you are pursued,
That you are most of all desired
By the One who changes not,
And fails not
With all the burning passion of His LOVE!

We love him, because he first loved us. – 1 John 4, WEBBE

Loving Too Much

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“Come to me, all you who labour and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28, WEBBE

There is a certain fear in trying to love too much. It is the fear of being rejected. The fear of not being good enough to be loved.

We do not always see it. We hardly realize it’s there.

But we feel it in the hurt when our love is not returned. We feel it in the exhaustion of giving everything and receiving too little, of doing everything and not having anyone to lean on to when we’re tired.

You know then that you have loved too much. Too much and too little. For though you have given much, you had so little left to withstand the pain.

For who has not loved and not touched pain? Knowing all the we shall ever love shall never be faultless, and not all shall return the love we have given them?

Loving Broken People

We cannot exempt ourselves from the world
while we are in the world,
and while we are in it
it is our lot to love broken men.
Yet how can we do it
when we are ourselves are broken,
and need to be assured
that we are loved
that we are accepted
for being the broken people that we are.
We cannot love a person
with an all accepting, transcending and encompassing love
without being hurt somewhat,
without being disappointed,
without being failed
of our expectations.
We cannot love
without being broken,
yet we cannot continue in love
without being stronger
than our brokenness.
It is only in Jesus
where we can find healing and strength
so as to continue in this love,
so as to continue suffering again and again
yet rise again and again
in a love that is far above
any expectations,
in a love that does not retreat
from any hurt
or any frustration,
but in a love that dares to dare
in a love that dares to dream
in a love
that never ever fails!

“The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. Such a one is alone with God in all places, and he alone truly enjoys the companionship of other men, because he loves them in God in Whom their presence is not tiresome, and because of Whom his own love for them can never know satiety.” – Thomas Merton

Loving Our Scars

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There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because… He who fears is not made perfect in love. – 1 John 4:18, WEBBE

It is easy to be confident when one knows one is beautiful. It is easy then to believe one deserves to be loved. And maybe that’s why we often desire to present only our very best to others. Maybe that is also why we’re afraid to show the imperfections we try to hide.

For how could anyone love us once they see how broken we really are? How could anyone love us once they see the many faults we hide inside?

But Oh, how we need others just to do that! How we need to be loved not only for our best but even for our very worst.

We can disbelieve most people who claim they love us for our beauty. But how can we doubt them who love us despite all our scars?

me and YOU

I am so small,
and You’re so BIG,
how can I ever love YOU
the way You love me?

Sometimes I hate myself
for just being me,
yet how wrong am I
to think that way.

For I am me
because of You,
and You gave up part of You,
so I can be me.

Please help me Lord,
to live with gladness;
Knowing that I am me,
and believing that each moment,
I shall be more of You!

“…we need to fall, and we need to be aware of it; for if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know our Maker’s marvelous love so fully…” – Julian of Norwich

Listen With Your Heart

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The first duty of love is to listen. – Paul Tillich

We have always wanted people to listen to us, to really listen. To listen not only with their ears, but with their heart.

Yet few are those it seems who know how. Few are those who can look beyond our words, beyond our tone, beyond our outward arrogance and anger.

How fortunate indeed to find one who can listen even to our silence, even to the words we fail to say. They see not only the words we wanted to say, they see our souls, they see who we really are.

If I Didn’t Listen

Forgive me if I didn’t listen well,
If I didn’t hear you when you spoke.
Forgive me if I blocked and hindered
The thoughts you wanted to share.

I was more occupied with my thoughts
Than with your thoughts,
I was more concerned with my feelings
Than I was with yours.

I was not able to hear
What you truly wanted to say.
I was not able to know you better,
I wasn’t able to value who you are.

Forgive me for I should have shown more compassion,
I should have respected you.
I should have opened up my heart,
So you could have opened yours.

Forgive me for I have made you feel more alone,
I have not listened to your fears or to your pain.
I was so absorbed in my own defenses,
In my own hurts and fears.

Forgive me for I have not listened well,
I should have known we’re not so different after all.
If I had only listened,
I may not have felt so alone.

So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger… – James 1:19, WEBBE

The Tears We Hide

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We cant always be strong, but sometimes, we have to risk trusting others with our tears so they’d have the chance to wipe them all away. – Jocelyn Soriano

The most terrible thing to feel in the world is not to be weak. The most terrible thing to feel is to know that even in your strength, even in your riches, even in your possession of power, you are alone.

Therein is our poverty, therein is true anguish. And in that poverty, there is nothing we can do but to risk ourselves all the more and make ourselves vulnerable. No one can join us while we are enclosed. No one can see us while we remain hidden.

By opening ourselves to others, we risk getting hurt more. But it is only by this risk that we also invite others to come and to be the friend of our souls.

Why do we hide our tears from the world?

We hide our tears –
because we don’t want to appear weak
because when we appear weak, other people would avoid us
because they don’t want to be affected by our weakness
and when they leave us, we just become even lonelier than before

We hide our tears –
because we don’t want to lose our credibility
with the people who trust us and depend on us
because when they see us crying, they’d think we’re crumbling
and when we crumble, they’d have no one to lean on to anymore

We hide our tears –
because we don’t want to appear hurt
because when our loved ones see how hurt we are, they’d get hurt as well
and we don’t want to see them hurt
because we’d only get hurt the more

I’ve hidden my tears for quite a while, ‘til there came a time when I surrendered, and I set them free – I let them overflow, and I’ve realized, I don’t want to hide my tears anymore.

I don’t want to hide my tears anymore –
because I want to show others how much I understand their tears,
and in so doing, help them feel they’re not alone;
because I want to show one doesn’t have to be perfect all the time,
just so you can be strong;
because I want others to understand me,too, in my hurts,
trusting they can also be strong, and that they could also love me for who I am,
not for who I could be or pretend to be.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18

“…and all my tears flowed silently toward the Heart of Him who alone understands what pain and suffering is.” – St. Faustina