In our Healing With Love class, we’ve been diving into what it means to connect with or commune with God.
Hello my friend, I hope this finds you well today!
To understand why we’ve been talking about connecting with God, you’d need to know that we’ve been reading Real Love in Parenting, by Dr. Greg Baer. And if you are a parent, and if you have read that book, you might already understand that it is a process of seeing yourself more clearly than ever before! And that can be painful!
You may even be in shock for awhile when you see the unloving ways you have treated yourself, your spouse and your kids.
Shock and then grief for me! I had to read and then have stretches of rest so that I could process and grieve and have some very humble and penitent conversations with my family members!
Do you see the intensity I’m talking about? And our whole class is feeling it and going through it together!
We’re also learning about the mindbody syndrome and how chronic stress and feeling like you have to earn love in your life can wreak havoc on a body. So the ante is up mama’s!
What we boiled it down to this week is this:
We need to feel loved. We need to connect with the source of all unconditional love in a way that we can receive His love.
The major challenge I’ve found in this situation, is that we usually have so much emotional noise inside of us, the kind that adds to our burden of feeling unworthy and unloved, so we unintentionally block His offering! So what is a girl to do!?
Well, as we discussed in class, we repent.
What? You mean I need to repent even though I have always tried to be a good mom and I have never beaten or abused my kids? I’ve worked and sacrificed and worried and prayed and done everything I knew how to do for my family and you think I need to repent?
The answer is yes. Yes, and we might as well get used to this pattern if we want to truly feel loved so that we can love our people!
The truth is, repentance is a gift to embrace! It gives us the opportunity to tell God about all of our unloving thoughts, words and behaviors. As often as as we need to! As often as possible! (At very least daily!)
Repentance is not a punishment!
And it doesn’t mean you’re flawed or bad!
It means that you, like every other soul in this world (who isn’t already a celestial being like some “disabled” people I know), are human and learning on the job!
So, lean in! Pour out your heart to God! Tell him every little thing (not that he doesn’t already know) but because you will be changed and empowered as you move into agent mode and own your stuff.
If you’re feeling heart broken and shocked at what you’ve been learning about love, that’s gggrrreat!
You’re in the best position to approach your Father in humility and contrition! In fact, you are in the most opportune place a person can be: at the throne of God, pleading for help with the goal of feeling loved and being loving, which is so rich and all-encompassing, we cannot do it alone.
If this is the first time in your life that you have understood your need for divine help, as in I seriously cannot muster up love on my own, so that I can share it with my kids kind of help, then you are in for an explosion of growth! And there isn’t anything more exciting than that!
In order to feel the love that is already around you, you must get rid of the garbage that is between you and God. Don’t know what that is? Let me innumerate:
Confess the times you have yelled at / attacked someone, in subtle or overt ways.
Tell Him about every minute you have spent working on your accomplishments, appearance or the appearance of your home or car or whatever, in order to “earn” the approval or pseudo love of another person.
Yep, it hurts.
Cough up all the times you have leaned-on (or clinged to) another human being in hopes of deriving some sense of worth or power or value.
Explain all the times and ways you have run from your people i.e. scrolling, busyness, texting, another project, etc. etc. etc.
Be real, especially about all the times, maybe actually hundreds of times, that you have resorted to acting powerless, failed, defeated, miserable, babyish or in other words, acted like a victim!
(This is addiction recovery sisters!)
Does this quite cover it?
Have you felt broken hearted as you have made your way through this topic?
If so, sing hallelujah! This means the information has helped you to wake up to the reality that you are human and need help! When you confess all of this to God, with a broken hearted faith that your Heavenly Father is there to hear your act of agency as you take responsibility for the state you are in currently, He can heal you!
And help you to find a new way of relating to Him, to your spouse and to your children!
Stop justifying unloving behavior!
Stop fighting the process of repentance and love tank filling!
Recognize the way our feelings, attitudes and behaviors have hurt or is hurting our loved ones.
Stop avoiding the pain of accountability!
Run to Him!
Be real and don’t look back!
This is the process of healing. This is the balm of Gilead.
Let His unconditional love and forgiveness and power pour over you!
This is freedom! This is grace! This is the way to peace.
“O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm forever.” Jacob 2 : 3, The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Christ
Love,
P. S. When we get this process running, then we can get on with learning more skills and ways to apply our new understanding to other relationships and to our health! Woohoo! So much goodness ahead!