Love Receives Gladly
Love is not only in giving but in receiving with a grateful heart
“Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come.” — Song of Songs 2:10, NAB
Love on earth will always be a struggle. Even with a perfect Spouse, one does not get away with tears, for the imperfect one will often misunderstand the other. How does one ever begin to understand the Lover who gives and gives no matter the failings of the other?
Oftentimes, all we need to do is to accept everything with love and we cannot even do it! We feel ashamed, we back out, we focus on our woes instead of focusing on the One who loves us. Do we think that love is always counting the cost and demanding of us something for everything we are given?
Far from it! Love does not count its gifts. Love is happy in giving, and it is grieved whenever we block its course, thinking it is always an exchange, something we should deserve.
If I really want to deserve love, I need only to recognize its generosity, its kindness, its desire to satisfy the beloved. I must not lift myself high, but allow myself to bow down low.
I am loved. My Lover desires to bestow light upon my darkness, joy upon all my misery, beauty upon all the unloveliness I see in me. Is it not enough to lean with trust and to receive with gladness all that is given me?
“Be comforted, for He Whom you have chosen as your Spouse has every imaginable perfection; but — dare I say it? — He has one great infirmity too — He is blind! And there is a science about which He knows nothing — addition! These two great defects, much to be deplored in an earthly bridegroom, do but make ours infinitely more lovable. Were it necessary that He should be clear-sighted, and familiar with the science of figures, do you not think that , confronted with our many sins, He would send us back to our nothingness? But His Love for us makes him actually blind.” — St. Therese of Lisieux
Receive His Love
“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
– Henri J.M. Nouwen
Before you give, receive from Him who has every good thing to offer you. Before you love, allow yourself to be loved.
It is only by being loved first that our love can be grateful, humble and pure. For we do not love anymore in order to be loved. We do not love in order to boast of our righteousness. And we do not love merely because we have an obligation to do so.
We love because we have been loved. We give because we have been given much. We make others happy because we are filled with joy!
There Is No Greater Love
You’ve got to allow God to LOVE You
From the very core of you;
Not the form that everybody sees,
Not the mask that you want
Everybody else to see.
You’ve got to allow God to enter
The innermost chambers
Of who you are;
To taste and see the real essence
Of your being,
Not the strength that gets sapped up
In your difficulties,
Not the outer beauty that ages
And soon fades away.
For you are not your height
Nor your stature.
You are not the color of your skin.
You are not your capabilities
Or your disabilities.
You are not the tone of your voice,
Or the power of your stride.
You are not your health,
You are not your sickness.
You are not your wealth,
Or the greatness of your name.
You are not your good deeds,
You are not your sins.
You are not the fears
That cripple you,
Or the courage
That makes you win.
You are whom God made you to be.
You are a spark from that
Unquenchable Flame.
You are His,
You’ve always been and always shall be.
You are the apple of His eye,
You are His delight,
You are the vessel that catches
The great outpouring of His love.
You are His beloved,
The one He awaits and longs for,
The one He teaches,
The one He leads,
The one He watches over
As you slumber,
The one He rejoices over
As you awake.
What greater joy is there than to know
How marvelous you are
In His sight?
What greater peace than knowing
You will never be alone?
That you are pursued,
That you are most of all desired
By the One who changes not,
And fails not
With all the burning passion of His LOVE!
Receive His Blessings
We praise God not only when we work. We praise Him also when in great faith and love, we receive all His blessings and rest.
The apostles gathered themselves together to Jesus, and they told him all things, whatever they had done, and whatever they had taught. He said to them, “You come apart into a deserted place, and rest awhile.” For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. – Mark 6, WEBBE
Sometimes, the most productive thing to do is what seems to be the least productive. Instead of running, it is resting. Instead of pushing yourself beyond your limits, it is taking good care of yourself.
It is taking the time to breathe, to play and to be young again. It is receiving all the blessings meant to be showered upon you. It is laughing and watching the world go by. It is being with the people who matters most to you.
We are not always being called upon to give. At times, all that is needed of us is to receive all the good things God has long wanted to bestow upon us.
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God bless!