Free to be Loved (a love letter)
(an exposition on love)
If I don’t feel free, but You say I’m free
Then I will call my heart a liar, and trust You more than me
I won’t walk to you, I’ll run
I won’t walk to you, I’ll run
- I’ll Run to You, Curt Vernon
The right kind of love will show you areas of your heart that are yet to be healed, and not use it against you. It will present it to you, matter-of-factly, and will ask you how you wish to proceed. It will not demand of you more than you can give. It will be a glorious opportunity to soften to what hurts you, even haunts you, and partner with someone as you lay these things to rest. The right kind of love stays, and doesn’t wish to harm. It doesn’t allow you to stay where you are, because there are so many places to explore together and on your own. It will drive you out of the comfort of an old narrative and illuminate the possibilities of your presence and growing joy.
When the love is right, it easily forgives. Because it isn’t a fight against each other, which would only result in two losers. It is a path towards understanding and certainly requires grace. How beautiful, when love overflows with grace, with ease and no record-keeping. Not a person has a clean slate, but when the love is right, there is no slate that needs to be cleaned.
The right kind of love changes your heart, because you choose to move forward in a way that causes the least damage to the other person. You grow if not for your sake, then theirs. And this ricochets back to you. You learn to love yourself more, and that allows your love for them to grow. It is quite a lovely thing to witness, even more to partake.
The right kind of love may sometimes feel painful. It enlightens you to a whole stratosphere of adoration in which you may not have been prepared to receive. It may disorient you and knock you off a course where your steps were so sure before. Yet this kind of love opens you up now to a world filled with possibilities. But why is this so harrowing? Perhaps because it means there must be more to this world than just what we can control. And if that is so, what then propels us to a love greater than what we could imagine on our own? How loved we are by the universe, by God, if the right kind of love exists. And by God, it does.
The right kind of love, heals. Not because we need the other, but because we were made to need others in this world. The right kind of love seasons, showers, cherishes. What a thing to be cherished. The right kind of love doesn’t make us whole, it asks us to be wholly ourselves. So that we may give more to the other, and receive wholly. How holy.
The right kind of love is two human beings, with all their flaws. So mortal, yet so hallowed.
The right kind of love bewilders because it requires us to confront the worst of ourselves, and harder so, the best. But what is the cost of uncertainty, when there is such beauty to be beheld.
The right kind of love propels us to love with such a degree that we did not know ourselves capable of. Do we then know ourselves? Therein is the adventure of places yet to be discovered. Let us welcome the adventure, rather than surrender the feat.
The right kind of love shares, gives, and receives. The right kind of love sees you, what unfamiliar terrain! How do we trust that it will be gentle to us and be tender in a fall? Why, the right kind of love asks us to find out, to test its boundaries, to show us its consistency and power. The right kind of love is exactly what we need, even when we don’t know what that is. The right kind of love is bigger than what we can hold and therefore, asks us to enlarge our cups. The right kind of love expands our hearts so we can love big too. But with a love that can be harnessed and exercised, chosen and directed to the one we hold in love. A love that shares in what is created together, not boasting in one’s own contributions. That would be an entirely different thing, where here the only thing that matters is to be near the light that emanates from the other. What a privilege to be so near a glowing sun.
How beautiful a thing to behold, that it cannot be held. It can only be experienced, with joy as its only end. Oh the pain, the fear, but the exhilaration and comfort outweigh. It is worthy to behold.
Surrender to love, how holy.