As I proceed with my 21 days of consciously improving my relationship to myself, of loving myself so I could later on love others more, I became aware of one reason that causes many of our heartaches.
I’ve realized that we are not allowing love in our lives, and for that reason, we are so often lacking in love. This is however not a conscious choice, but a subconscious response that we do, and unaware of what we do, we are in truth blocking the inward flow of love into our lives. How so?
By virtue of expectations. By experience or lessons taught us by other people, we have developed certain expectations on how we should be loved. And if these expectations are not met, we immediately conclude that we are not loved.
But the truth is that we may be loved. Maybe not in ways we wanted to. Not in ways we’ve learned or were taught us, but in ways that person knew best how to love.
The same is true as regards allowing God’s love into our lives. We have certain expectations. A lot of expectations! God should do this. God should be that. He is All-Powerful and All-Knowing isn’t He? So He should do this if He loves me.
But what if He doesn’t do exactly what we want Him to do? Does it mean He doesn’t love us? But how can we measure His love in the first place? Are we All-Knowing as He is?
Because of our expectations, we block so much love that should have flowed into our lives. If we desire to love ourselves more, let us be kinder to ourselves. Let us allow more love to flow in our hearts.
And if a person expresses love differently, say he is able to show more in deeds than in words, let us extend our understanding and our appreciation. We are loved! And that’s what really counts 🙂
The thing about hope is that it’s a positive force that shines the most when it’s dark. When everything’s going well, we hardly notice it’s there. But when things go against us, when our dreams fade and when we see no immediate reprieve from our troubles, that’s when hope does its best work for us.
"Where Hope Can Be Found"