I’m no longer afraid, now that I’ve found You.
I found You when I chose to stop living under the approval of others, and instead desired for Your love alone.
I found You when I chose to stop “saving” & began to simply serve.
When I looked for a Heavenly Parent who loved me first, without a need to earn, or be worthy of that love, I found You outside of that anxiety driven race to be ‘best’ at the finish line.
I found You after I recognized the pharisee in me that based my worthiness in performance, appearance & status, after my best attempts at ‘complete obedience’ drove me to progressively hate myself, fear myself, fear others the more I tried to be ‘perfect’… It was when I chose to end my participation in the faith competition and began my own ’40 days’ to quiet the opinions of the world with the mission to learn how to find You, a version of You that I believed could be real.
The moment I understood how you might love me – is when I found an honest way to love myself.
What a radical thing, to feel worthy enough of our own love…
I found this love when I bravely chose to do whatever I understood it took to be an advocate for my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs – which meant I need to create hard to set boundaries, sometimes choosing me first, even if that meant disappointing others. This was unexpected as we’re taught we have to “always” put others first in order to be worthy of Your blessings.
Now, I understand what is said when we “lose our life” in the service [not “saving”] of others. I now understand what is asked of us, to “love thy neighbor as thyself”… We’re able to do that when we stop fearing ourselves – what we might feel, how we might appear to others, and instead love ourselves the way You love us.
Now I understand why You may have needed your own ’40 days’ of complete solitude to reconnect to the God who infinitely loves us. You needed to quiet the preaching pharisee’s who fought against Your best attempts to teach us mortal humans about God’s real love.
It is your love, found within us if we bravely choose to take the journey. You are always with us, because we were created in Your infinite & unimaginable Love.
