I love you

Never has one sentence caused so much trouble. I couldn't post the scene from "That 70s Show" here, but I think it is a reasonable interpretation of how love is viewed by my generation. I have been told "I love you" in so many ways and places...and for so many reasons. If I have ever said it to anyone untruthfully, may my tongue be cut out...yet, I have said it with clear knowledge in my heart that the way I used the word "love" in the sentence was not the same way that someone else was using the word "love." We hear what we want to hear. We say what we want to say. Or not.

And the word "Love," which is God, is so often abused and misused.  I wonder sometimes if we should take that second commandment in Exodus 20 and say it again:   
You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain. 
What if we rewrote that:
You shall not take the name of the LORD, that is LOVE, in vain. 


If is was truly a commandment to not misuse the word love, most of us would have to go to confession every day. And yet, I John 4 speaks over and over again that God is love. And maybe that's why my heart hurts all the time with sins I cannot seem to name. For me, I want to believe I love well and in accordance with the human relationship presented in front of me...but I can never be sure.


What I do know, is that I do not receive love well...if I receive it at all. For me, to be loved is a wound. It hurts deeply inside. It cuts through all the protective layers I've built around my heart to survive in this world. Now that is not true for everyone. It is only true for some of us....the tax collectors and the sinners, the lepers, the blind, those possessed by demons. 


It confuses me that I can love others and not let them love me. Yet...as I wrote before, I do have the blessing of being connected to the Divine. I am in a different place than some others. I am a contemplative. I am more John of the Cross when I would prefer to be Teresa of Avila. I have worked hard to detach myself from temporal things, and yet be very present in them and for them. But I don't let anyone "get to me." When I do, it creates a flurry of unnecessary grief...because no matter how much I get, I always want more...and more is never enough...because I know that only God can fill the hole in my heart that is as far and wide as the Grand Canyon...


So yesterday, I did an experiment.  After a salty tear confession, I went into the Chapel during Eucharistic Adoration and saw a friend praying from her book. I went over to her and took her hand, her very little hand (I have large hands for a woman) and I held it.  And I cried even more deeply. She whispered, "Do you want to go outside and talk?" I shook my head "no." And she just let me sit there and hold her hand. I felt the smallness, the gentleness of her hand in mine and I asked God, "Is this love? Is this what you mean?  Am I receiving it? Is this what I must learn to do? Is it real? I know she is a holy woman. She prays with her children and husband every night. She is growing closer to you each day. I can see it. Is this what she gives them? Is this love? Is this what I am supposed to learn?"  


I write these words here because I know there are people with the same wonderings. There are those of us out there who, for whatever reason, were forced to question if we were truly lovable. Most of us who learn this go off in another direction...into a kind of hell on earth. Perhaps you think it is rare, but I see it everywhere. In the tiny places of your heart where you think no one sees...I can see. I know where the doubt is and I know God has told me it is my job to help with healing it. 


Every time you settle, and women do this the most I think...but I may be wrong...you shut out love.

From Mark 1: 
It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert. And he remains in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.

"At once LOVE drove him out into the desert"

I have always loved this passage. Jesus is told He is God's Son, He is called the Beloved...and knowing that He is loved...he runs out int the desert.Jesus hears,
"I love you." and he runs off, to think about what that means. 

I love you. Figure it out.

Love, Cindy