Allow Yourself to be Loved

When I was in my twenties, I was in a relationship with someone I cared about very deeply. However, it was a “come close”,“go away” relationship. The distancer and the pursuer.

Every time we would begin to get close he would pull away. Then after I let go, he would come back and pursue the relationship again, and I would fall right back into it. It was an emotional roller coaster.

We were both pretty wounded people at the time. He grew up with an alcoholic father, and I grew up in a family where I was referred to as the “mistake” baby. I was pretty much on my own when it came to emotions and learning about life. It was all trial and error, and sadly mostly error.

I remember distinctly to this day, a friend trying to comfort me during one of our “distancing” episodes. She turned to me and said,” I am so sorry he won’t allow you to love him”.Those few little words became a turning point for me and have stuck in my head to this day. In his woundedness my boyfriend did not allow himself to be vulnerable. He only allowed me to get so close, then he would bolt because he was afraid to trust. He was afraid to allow himself to be loved.

In retrospect I have come to recognize it is not so different from my relationship with God. I get close, and then I bolt. I am afraid to allow Him to love me because I have not had a good foundation of love in my life. All those that were supposed to love me and care for me abandoned me. My parents, when they kicked me out of the house as a teen because I was pregnant and coerced me into an abortion, and my future husband who I married being very wounded from my abortion,feeling unworthy of love and who himself, was suffering from addictions.

When I finally turned to God, it was out of desperation. I was broken, and a mess. Even the thought of trusting would send me into a panic. I was self-reliant (something I still struggle with) even though my decisions in life were not the best. The trouble was I did not trust myself either because I had caved into that abortion so many years before. I knew I needed help and I wanted to believe God was merciful and loving. I longed to believe in love.

It took a long time but through prayer, spiritual direction, emotional counseling and learning about the impact of abortion and how it was affecting my decisions, I slowly grew to trust God. I saw that He was different, that He really did unconditionally love me and longed to come into my sufferings and heal me.

He wanted to pour His grace into my wounds, but I had to be willing to open them or the graces would just roll off of me. Little by little I opened my wounds and He embraced them, showing me He was there for me all along.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have that tendency of self-reliance and always have to be on guard for it. I can become fearful when I feel God asking me to do some things, but despite my feelings I choose to trust, to move forward. To live by faith.

I give myself to Him each day wherever I am, in my joy and in my misery knowing He is guiding, healing me and leading me to Himself.

Those words of my friends so long ago, “I am so sorry he won’t allow you to love him,” have become a gauge for me, a gauge that reminds me not to do that to God, but to allow His love into my heart no matter how frightened I may feel, trusting in His love and that He will never abandon me. – TB