Guess who got turned down for two jobs this week?  Neither were particularly good jobs and yet I still felt gutted.  This post is going all serious.  Sorryboutit.  We are so quick to feel rejected by others.  Or is it just me?

Something made me realise during the service on Sunday that I don’t really enjoy being loved.  It sounds crazy, but I finally understand that I perceive the love of others as a burden.  Something that I need to live up to, if not earn.  I feel that if someone loves me then I am responsible for them or that I will have to change myself.  Not that if I love THEM.  The other way round.  I find it very hard to accept the love of God.

How can I accept the unconditional love of God if I don’t want the responsibility of keeping Him happy and feel that I need to placate Him?  This is of course a nonsensical way to think.  God doesn’t need me at all.  He doesn’t need anything.

I am not alone in this.  We have all consistently had such a poor model of love from our parents and from others that we end up with a twisted perception of what love is and how it manifests.  For some, there’s debilitating guilt whenever we let the ones we love down.  For others, it’s love and abuse mixed up so that one cannot receive love at all. We all have gremlins lurking in our psyches.  They wreak havoc.  Without being able to receive love, how on earth can we hope to love others.  No wonder we’re so spiritually deafened to God’s constant screaming that He loves us.  To quote one of my heroes, the fierce RuPaul: ‘If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?’  Can I get an ‘Amen’ up in here?

On a retreat at The Bield last year, one of the other guests said something to me that I liked.  She said that what gets us through are the handholds of grace.  The little things that bring you life and help you to remember that you are not in this by yourself.  They help you to find the safe path through, if you make sure you look out for them and take them when you can.

This Sundays preaching from Darren at Re:Hope was on the subject of angels.  But I sketched nothing relevant to that subject.  Good message nonetheless and I did listen.  I have the notes to prove it.  Full sermon can be heard on the Re:Hope website.