We accept the love we think we deserve

"We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter.  Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all the time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets!  It's time to put an end to this.  It's time for us to let ourselves be loved."
~C. JoyBell C.

More specifically, we accept the love we think we deserve.

Is this truth for you?  It's truth for a lot of people.  Why is it we tend to put our time and energy into people that don't care?  Why is it that we spend our time shaping ourselves to be loved by people that really don't want anything to do with us?  Why do you do that?

Rosie and I had a conversation about this tonight.  So many people I know do this.  They get involved in a person, or in a relationship, and it's clearly not good for them.  But they proceed.  They think things will get better, or things will change, or trust/love/hope will come out of their tolerance of the treatment they receive.

We accept the love we think we deserve.
"Why do we do this? Why do we fall for people....want to be with people....who treat us as second?"  Rosalie thought aloud as we talked.  In all honesty, the only thing I can think of is the deep unconscious belief that there's something fundamentally wrong with us if we are not loved by someone.  That the struggle of being second means that we aren't worth it, that ourselves as human beings aren't good enough to occupy their time.  Therefore the treatment so many receive in relationships, whether "dating" or "platonic", we assume we need to strive to do more, be more, act more, in order to be worth someone's time.  We must deserve this treatment because it's not possible for us to find better.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

And so in our pursuit of a person (or I suppose a career, object, status) we lose sight of the being we were made to be.  It isn't until we see that we are worth more than second place do we begin to recover.  We break open in our hurt and struggle when we find we are not wanted, but through that, we find our feet, stand up, and become more resilient.  Somewhere along the way, our view of what we deserve rises from a place of second, to a place of actual love.  And without that struggle, we would have never discovered that on our own.  We would never be able to empathize with those in our place.  We suddenly see the beauty that we are.  

Through the struggle, we can find our beauty.

 "I think that we are like stars.  Something happens to burst us open; but when we burst open and think we are dying; we're actually turning into a supernova.  And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we're suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before!"
~C. JoyBell C.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conversations from a graveyard

Image
There's so much I have to say.  So, here goes everything. I stopped at the graveyard today.  Impulsively.  I was driving home from the store when a song came on from Tenth Avenue North, and I totally lost it.  I haven't cried in a long time.  It's really weird, I used to cry almost every night, but since last year, I just don't cry much.  Today though, today it all broke free. It wasn't one thing that hit me, but a thousand things.  I've been resisting the want to call certain people because I know I need to let go.  The strength of that is draining.  I've been studying and worrying about classes and life after school.  The stress of that is draining.  I'm sure you all have your own stresses and strength drainers in life; today was a mix of everything. I pulled into the graveyard and just cried.  I cried for all the people who were buried here, their earthly life over.  I cried for those who may not have kn...
Read more

A Passion Like Paul

I want to have a passion like Paul.  I want to have that desire, that fire, that intensity. I want that love. I've finished reading Acts and am into Romans, which is probably why I've suddenly rediscovered the amazing fire Paul has about the Lord.  This man, Paul, has undergone capture, imprisonment, torture, rejection, and yet he STILL is on fire for Christ.  He continues his mission, as eager and passionate as ever, filled with love, humility, and forgiveness.  Here is a man who went from persecuting to persecutee. Here is a man who revolutionized is way of thinking, believing, living. Here is a man who has changed . I love that Paul is able to relate to is audience so phenomenally.  He knew what it was like to hate Christians, to kill them, to find them evil, because he used to believe that.  But then his life was changed forever.  He did a 180 degree turn and became a missionary who knew the importance and had the unending love to sh...
Read more

Deprecation

Why have I been a Christian for 25 years and still not know what that means? Why does everyone seem so solid in their understanding and I'm floating around like, "Yeah, your version makes sense too..." Why does everyone tell me the answer comes when you seek it, but I'm not good at hide-and-seek? Why do I have so many questions? If you've ever had one of those this-is-too-much-to-handle moments, you might understand that there are times when you're on your knees exhausted, angry, and surrendered, wondering if this is rock bottom.  I've only had two of those moments in my life, one when I was younger, and one in the shower covered with leftover glitter but feeling anything but sparkle. I rarely talk aloud when I pray, but today was different.  I was verbally, brutally honest with God, something that a normal person might think to be strange but the anger came surprisingly easy and burned like a pile of wood soaked in gasoline.  It only took one li...
Read more