Can You Teach Your Heart To Love?
I was writing some lyrics for love songs recently and while brainstorming for potential topics to write about, I tried to think about real life situations involving romantic relationships.
One such topic that came to mind is about someone who fell in love with the wrong person and had her heart shattered. While thinking about her failed relationship, she thought about this long-time friend who has also expressed his romantic sentiments to her before. Unfortunately, she turned him down.
Now that she has been hurt by someone who never truly cared for her at all, she couldn’t help but think that she should have just chosen her friend who had been faithful to her through the years. The only problem is that she doesn’t know if she could fall in love with him. One thing that she knows for certain, however, is that he is very much worthy of her love and has proven it through many seasons and difficult situations in their life.
Isn’t this somehow the story also of some of us when it comes to our relationship with God? Many factors may be different, but there are similar things that we can note from the said story.
All our lives, many of us have searched for the wrong things and the wrong people to love. We fill our hearts with fleeting pleasures. We seem to look everywhere rather than in God, who alone can fulfill the deepest desire of our hearts.
And after the world has left us empty and heartbroken, we come to Him. We wonder why we never gave Him the love and attention He truly deserved, our Eternal and Faithful Friend who will never leave us even when the rest of the world walks away.
The only thing then that we ask ourselves is whether our hearts can learn to love Him. Can our sinful hearts ever love Him who is good and holy and true?
And the answer is “yes”, by God’s grace. For God Himself will purify us and give us every grace we need so we can love Him the way He was meant to be loved.
We can teach our hearts to love if we allow our hearts to be taught, healed and nourished by Him who is Infinite Love and Unending Happiness.
“We need to fall sometimes—and we need sometimes to feel our failure. If we did not, we would not know how weak and exiled from our true selves we are, nor would we truly understand how much our Creator loves us. When we reach Heaven, we will clearly see how terribly we separated ourselves from God—and how despite that, Divine love for us never diminished nor did we ever become less precious in God’s eyes.”
(All Shall Be Well: A Modern-Language Version of the Revelation of Julian of Norwich by Ellyn Sanna)
Here is a rough English translation of my song that I originally wrote in Filipino:
If I Had Chosen You
(translation of song lyrics by Jocelyn Soriano)
I.
If only my heart could choose,
I would have chosen you.
You would have been the one I loved,
The one my heart desires
Why did it have to be someone else?
Someone who didn’t care?
I wouldn’t have cried,
Had I only chosen you.
Chorus:
Tell me that what you feel
for me is true
And it wouldn’t be hard
To teach my heart.
You and I,
Friends from the very start
Friends until the end,
You’re the one I yearn to love
II.
Why did I only notice now?
Why did I fail to see
The love upon your gaze
The truth upon your heart.
Why did it have to be someone else
when it could have been you
from the very start
to teach my heart how to love.
(Repeat Chorus)
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Severe true and wonderfully written!