Created For Love

As humans, we are born with an innate desire to be loved. Studies have shown that infants that are not touched can die from a severe form of malnutrition. The gentle touch of a loving hand actually reduces a stress hormone in the brain and increases necessary hormones for proper development. God created humans to experience love, and our first experience of that love comes from our mothers and fathers at our birth. I remember how anxious and excited my husband and I were to finally hold each and every one of our children. We couldn’t wait to meet them and say hello for the first time. I believe the love of a parent is essential for a child to grow up into a healthy and secure adult, but sometimes those emotions are lacking throughout their lives due to the fallen world that we live in.

In my own situation, I was born into an alcoholic family. My father would be characterized as a physically abusive alcoholic; a real life Jeckel and Mr. Hide; when the drink was in him, he was the devil incarnate it seemed. I didn’t know what it was like to live without fear. As a child, I was thrown into unimaginable life threatening situations that caused me to grow up extremely insecure and fearful. Most people, like me, grow up with dysfunctional thinking due to their upbringing and never even know it.

Some of the dysfunctional thinking that occurs to a person who has lived in a dysfunctional situation where a Godly healthy love is not present, is lack of trust, uncontrolled anger, anxiety, uncontrollable fears, feelings of responsibility beyond their control, irresponsibility, control of others, manipulation, suicidal, narcissistic, excessively dependent on others, fear of rejection, extreme guilt, depression, bulimia, anorexia, obsessive compulsive, or engage in addictive behavior.

Unfortunately, these are just a few of the destructive thinking patterns that can occur without even being aware of it. We do things and act certain ways because it seems right to us. It becomes our survival tactic. Our way of controlling surroundings that are out of control in order to feel safe and in control, but the sad fact is that we are anything but. These emotional disorders happen without our conscience choosing. They are the by- product of our environment and our way of survival; our mind’s ability to cope. I know this all too well because I was a slave to it.

Many of us walk through life never identifying why we do what we do because it is ingrained into who we are, but God never meant it to be this way. But understanding these habitual habits is only the beginning; it is only a road map of where we’ve been and where we’ve come from.  Therefore, the process of healing has only just begun, and the journey ahead can be mentally, emotionally and physically painful.  But with God’s help you can survive this crucible. 

It takes God’s love to reveal our dysfunctional self to us, and God’s love and healing power to free us from them.  God starts to work out our chains one link at a time. He knows how injured and frail, and in pain we are. He is a loving gentle God whose number one plan has always been to free us from this body of death, to free us from this fallen world’s effect on us. His most faithful and loving act was sending His Son Jesus Christ to deliver us from our bondage. He and He alone can truly be our Deliverer. The Deliverer of the pain we have gone through. God doesn’t want us to continue to live a slave to sin. It is sin when we make ourselves our own god by manifesting controlling behaviors, dysfunctional manifestations of our trying to protect ourselves, and God is not the center and healing power of our lives. The tendency to protect ourselves is massive. But in the end we never really know safety, healing, or a painless life. Love alone opens the doors that were thought to be bolted shut for eternity.

God adopts us into His family and makes us one of His children.  He has always wanted us. I consider myself a child of the Almighty. But before all this took place in my life, a lot of dross had to be burned off. It’s a process, and God alone knows how much we can handle at one time. Even in our healing He is gentle.

Many adults have pasts that entail stories like my own, others have less outward and blatant experiences but none-the-less are injured. They feel as if they were always coming up short on their parent’s affections. We spend a lifetime wanting nothing more than to experience a true sense of love.

The sad truth is that humans are broken people. We are flawed. We collect baggage as we go through life. We are all trying to get from another person what we are so desperately seeking…Love. But it is like trying to draw water from a broken cistern; one that will leave us thirstier still. Some family members are inept at showing or expressing love the right way because of their own pain and past; their own shame. We then grow up with empty wells ourselves hoping that someone along life’s journey will have enough in their well to help us fill our own.

It is hard to see beyond the longing and the pain, but there is only one who can truly and completely fill that void. Only one who can fill our wells to overflowing. In the New Living Translation, there are 18 verses that speak of God’s unfailing love and faithfulness. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is the only one who knew you even before you were even created. He has you in the palm of His hands. Don’t allow evil thoughts of defeat and destruction destroy the very precious gift that you are to Him. When we love from the love that we are receiving in abundance from Christ, we are able to love the unlovable at a level that is humanly impossible. The pain that that individual has caused us is almost invisible in the light of God’s love for us. We find ourselves being able to love them even when still they are unable to love us back. That, my Beloved, is the true freedom that comes from Christ.

You may be the person God uses to heal the pain and past of that unlovable person in your life. This is the most amazing human miracle that can happen in our world today. 

Images attained from the following sites: internations.org, churchwhisperer.com, qiroadmap.org, tumblr.com, expeto.de, jeanniepage.com through google images.