Finishing Proverbs came quicker than expected. Among all the short sayings, chapter 30 sparked note on a feeling, that being, I have no wisdom. There’s much to be said for the mistakes I’ve made in my life as I have no justifications for my poor decisions and feelings that have followed me over the years. I could chalk it up to being a single 20-something but that wouldn’t be right. I am far from being wise. Wether it’s my mind or heart that wants understanding, I’m not sure which at the moment, I feel I’m undeserving of such a gift as wisdom. That feeling of being, “Undeserving” is prominent not only in my desire to gain wisdom but also in this Love, this “Agape” I’ve been given! That of which I’m sure I have.
So we kinda end this writing thru Proverbs the same way we started. Why me? Why am I deserving of this love? I tell you I am not, but it still lives inside me. I am undeserving of wisdom, which has not been made known to me, but desire wisdom though I know I am unworthy. God, please don’t let me waste your love. If there is wisdom for me, cleanse my heart that I may be worthy to know.
Ok, some final thoughts on this whole love dilemma. Last night I started asking friends the question about how they best receive love. Asking for feedback, I’ve received a handful of responses already, I’ll talk about a few of them now.
This is the message I sent them…
“Ok so here’s the pitch,
For a few weeks now i’ve felt really burnt out mentally, at first it felt like dissociation but when I started to wonder why, that made no sense. I’ve been blessed with a love that I don’t understand, the kinda belly laughing tear filled joy that I can only imagine comes from God. So might I start off saying, praise God for it. But that being said, I felt drained anyway.
As the digging began into this whole dilemma as to why these feelings were around, I couldn’t help but question wether or not that love was only applicable to me and not to those around me. That didn’t make sense, the thought of the love only being useful to me that is, so I juggled the idea and realized something.
The love I have and want to give hasn’t been very methodical. “Intentional” might be a better word but for the sake of straying from stereotypical Christian verbiage, i’ll just say methodical. When I realized this gift of love had been given, all I wanted was to give it away but I didn’t know how. I wanted it to live through every interaction in my day-to-day relationships, and i’m pretty sure that mindless thinking is what’s got me in this position. I’ve tried giving love to others in ways that might not be receptive to them. So as I tried spending this love on my dear friends, I made the mistake of not taking the time to understand how they love and best receive love.
^There’s a lot more I have to this thought but I just wanted to set up to this question. And please do give me your thoughts, feelings, emotions, concerns, etc. about this because if I am wrong in my thinking I want to know.
The question is “I don’t want love in our relationship to be wasted. I want to love you in ways that are receptive and build you up. What can I do and in what ways do you want to be loved?”
And the question may also be how do YOU tend to love others? I’m just curious of it all bc I feel my perception of HOW to love is so narrow, so i just want to know what y’all think about it.
If you want to respond to that question please feel free to reach out because I genuinely want to know. Also, if you have any criticisms of what I said please voice those too.
Thanks for taking your time to read“
The first person I talked to about this was my friend Jay. One of my closer friends since moving to Tampa, the son of the pastor of my church and borderline polar opposite to me (or so we thought).
I gave him my rant late last night about feeling drained and burnt out. We talked a while about it and came to a few points.
1. Am I allowing myself to be poured into?
Short answer to that, no. It’s simple to think though, that pouring out requires being poured into, quite an obvious thought actually. But as the two of us talked, we realized neither of us allow people to pour into us. For me it comes from a sense of fear and deservedness. Fear from past experiences of letting people into my heart for them to only leave it damaged, which caused doubts to arise on wether or not I’m even worthy of love.
Both of us kinda laughed and acknowledged these points, realizing if there was to be change, I would have to actively remind myself of our second point.
2. Don’t project past experiences and trauma onto my present and future.
Simply put, let it go kid. If I’m to allow myself to be loved and poured into in any capacity, I can’t be expecting my past experiences to repeat themselves. Though it’s possible some things may repeat throughout my life, I can’t continue to live in fear, attempting to protect myself from a future that holds uncertainty wether I like it or not. Which brings us to a side note that kinda relates…
2b. Don’t let the things that hurt you in the past, keep you from loving in those same ways again.
That is the biggest thing that has me shutting others’ love out, that being, I so badly desire control over my own life — Aside from Gods hold on my heart of course. But my belief that having walls up would protect me is so wrong, walls can be useful of course, but at what point do I realize that the whole time I was trying to keep others out, building the walls higher, I had been trapping myself inside at the same time. Confining myself to a gray space of repetitive, surface level, menial interactions that I tried to tie this gift of love into. As if I were wrapping the love up in little balls of affection to then throw over my walls, hoping that someone would be on the other side, expecting them to be receptive.
3. Stop looking for answers where I should be looking for God.
Stop looking for how to love certain people when the evidence of Gods grace, creation and love is right in front of me. The beauty of friendships, their stories, their emotions, they’re all so unique! How on earth can I be looking for answers on how to love when the evidence of God surrounds those I’m attempting to love in the first place.
This was the extent of mine and Jay’s conversation before asking one another how we wanted to be loved or best received love. Those answers I will keep private for now.
Shortly after going home I sent the same message from before to a few different group messages, curious of what they’d say. My buddy John was the first to respond, he had quite a lot to say. The short version of our conversation made two points.
- Since I feel my perception of love is so narrow, the question I should be asking alongside the other is, “How do YOU love others?” not necessarily, “How would you like me to love you?”
- People that truly love us figure out how to love us because we grow understanding for one another. Note that each friendship is different as those loves are different, this may be why loves are perceived so differently.
John also made the point that it’s hard to love so many in such little time. Though it’s noble to have numerous friends, not all of them can receive or be as receptive of love if I’m already stretched too thin. So, start small Hank.
Some other responses I’ve gotten have been about understanding love languages and a handful of people today have recommended the ‘5 love languages’ book, so I may read that at some point.
Amongst the other responses, it seems so far, that perceptions on how to love relationally differ a lot. Some saying to be patient and grow in knowing who you’re trying to love first with others saying to love like yourself anyway. There are some patient outlooks and others not so much.
I do see a common trend of needing to be known to be properly loved. Take it from the author of love Himself. God knows us intimately, which may be one of the reasons his love feels so strong. We have this perception that God knows our innermost being but chooses to love us regardless. It’s an emotionally wrenching, trauma breaking concept that God would choose to love us through all our shit, but we know it deep down to be true. So who’s to say that the first step in really loving someone isn’t to be willing to trust and know them deeply?
Maybe this is where my thoughts have been getting caught up on HOW to love. Considering I still don’t know a majority of these new friends deeply, it’s tough to try and scheme how to love them properly. That lack of intentionality in relationships results in this shallow feeling. That is my fault for not making the effort to truly know them better before trying to spend my love on them.
I’m hopefully going to field some more responses over the coming days so I may come back to this topic but for the time being, those will be my final thoughts.
Being able to talk through this and narrow down some reasons as to why I’ve felt burnt out has brought a lot of peace on the matter. Though it’s led to a few answers, it makes sense that there’s no clear and cut way of how to love and be loved. My biggest takeaways are…
— Search for God in place of answers
— Make a patient effort to know others as you learn to love them.
So how do I receive love?
I want to be known. I feel loved when someone takes the time to know me. Ironic it took me so long to understand this for others when it was how I felt all along. I want to be brought up in honest affirmation AND criticism. Having the opportunity to just sit and talk and process with someone with my walls down is the most valuable thing to me. Maybe we don’t love too differently after all. Who knows? Hopefully I will soon.
Why am I nervous to love though? I don’t think it’s surprising that I’m nervous, it’s just the thoughts in the back of my mind questioning if I’m doing it correctly. But hey, that’s how we ended up here in the first place. Fuck me… here we go.