Love
Love. We
often think of it first and foremost as a noun, the emotion. Some advocate for
a verb, defining it as an action or a willed choice. What is love when one is
so tired? When fatigue eats away at your body, mind, and soul? When you are too
tired to either feel or do/will? I never thought one could get
that weary, exhausted, fatigued. Before I would have chalked it up as an excuse
on my part. But I have sipped of that weariness, and left drained.
You may not face that deep fatigue that fogs, deadens. Yet, you may have your own life circumstances that hinder what you want to do, be, or feel. Depression, illness, life circumstances that make you necessarily busy (not just misplaced priorities), the other breaks off the relationship, grief, etc.
You may not face that deep fatigue that fogs, deadens. Yet, you may have your own life circumstances that hinder what you want to do, be, or feel. Depression, illness, life circumstances that make you necessarily busy (not just misplaced priorities), the other breaks off the relationship, grief, etc.
My friend
shows joy and sorrow. I cannot feel, I cannot empathize. I have nothing to do
so with today. Too tired to do. And when I "do," the heart behind it
is so tired. Not weary from burden, but out of the mere act of trying to
breathe daily. It hurts. It hurts to not be able to love, give, as we desire. You know your own piercing pain of not being able to love as you would.
I am, we are sometimes, left
as the flotsam from the waves of fatigue or suffering or lacks. In the upside-down wonderings in the tumult,
the words of Paul ring: “but have not love, I am a noisy gong…..have not love,
I am nothing…. Have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Without love I
am nothing. Paul has his point (and not to undermine it), but the enemy twists it in the vulnerability of pain.
Nothing.
What then?
Who am I?
Who are you? Life and Satan may be posing the question, “Who are you anyway?” in a variety of different ways.
Who are you? Life and Satan may be posing the question, “Who are you anyway?” in a variety of different ways.
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| "The Promise" by Morgan Weistling |
No matter,
still, still, we have his love. His love bestows
value. We are not loving so he loves us, but rather he loves us first. We
are loved, no matter our condition, weariness, circumstances. Not even this can
separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:37-39). Our identity first and
foremost is the Beloved, not the Lover. Our love can only come from his giving
us his love, his naming us Beloved.
Receiving
love is just as important as giving love (2). As John Piper says (my
paraphrase), God is glorified as the Giver when we are dependent on him. Our
empty hands coming to him elevates him as the Giver, the Lover, the First, the
Source. God is love, that is who he is. We are created out of the overflow of his
love. To receive love from him is what we were created for. We are then meant
to give love, but receiving love is just as important.
His naming
of us, his word for us, speaks louder than our lacks, our failures from our
finitude. We are never without love. We are never nothing. For he has spoken us into existence as his children, spoken our names: "Beloved."
NOTES
(1) Thank
you to Brad Hambrick’s seminar on depression http://bradhambrick.com/
. He has other wonderful materials too.
(2) Thank
you to my pastor, Nate Hamblin, for this in a different context.
Just yesterday I decided to spend some days meditating on love, and lo and behold, your topic appears this morning! Thanks for listening to the Spirit. Your perspective on being loved (beloved) rather than the more common focus on the act of loving gives me cause to take a deep breath and smile. We are loved of God! What a comfort! It's the perfect place from which to start.
ReplyDeleteAlso, have you ever read anything by or about St. Therese of the Little Flower? Some of your thoughts remind me of her.
Cynthia--I haven't read St. Therese, perhaps I'll have to! Thank you!
ReplyDelete