To Let Yourself Be Loved

Close your eyes for a moment and go back in time. Picture yourself as an adorable, chubby little baby. Feel yourself wrapped up tightly in a cozy blanket, snuggling in your mother’s arms. You smell the familiar scent of the one who brought you into this world and hear the familiar cadence of her heartbeat. You look up into those beautiful eyes and are greeted with a warm smile. You are completely content knowing that you are loved unconditionally.

Somehow between then and now we have lost our confidence and belief in being freely loved.

Somehow, we were conditioned to believe that we were only worthy of love based on our performance. This causes us to practice longer or work harder so that those around us, whether it be our parents, peers, or spouses, will find us lovable.

The identity of being a daughter just may be the hardest one for us to accept.

Our identity as a wife and mother is at the forefront of our daily lives, and something that we love to do, as busying ourselves in caring for our spouse and children is so much easier than dwelling on our belovedness as a child of God.

We like to “do”, not “be”. With the other identities, we get to actually “do” things. With the other two identities, we get to actually “do” things for our husbands and children. We like to believe that we get more “points” for how hard we work in both roles.

Being a daughter of God is so hard because there is nothing to do, except accept that we are loved unconditionally.

It’s uncomfortable to think that God delights in you and calls you His Beloved, simply because of who you are.

While we tend to avoid dwelling on this reality, it may in fact be the greatest of all of the identities that we have.

Spending time to meditate on our unworthiness of His great love, yet rejoicing in this amazing gift is the school of love.

Love is at the root of every one of our identities that we claim as women.

Accepting this life-changing free gift, that we are loved because of who we are, and not because of what we do, will put all of our other roles into perspective.

Suddenly we aren’t “proving” that we are a good enough wife or mother in an obnoxious way, but we are learning to love these special people in our lives in the way that they deserve to be loved.

This radical love will then spill over into every other relationship that we may have. We are seeing the world as Christ sees it. We aren’t judging, dominating, gossiping, or whatever nasty survival skill coping mechanism we have developed over the years.

We are learning to love like Christ, as we are learning to be loved and return that love back to Him.

I invite you to let your guard down and allow yourself to be loved like you were when you were that tiny little babe. Back when there was no pressure or anxiety to “do” anything. Just love and be loved by Him who is Love.

Until next time, your sister in Christ,

Leah