Even As I Am Fully Known

So often I still catch myself believing that love is something that comes after I do a thing.

“I’ll deserve love once I’m wise

When I’m good enough everyone will love me

Only when I’ve proved myself can I be worthy

When I’m pretty, when I’m strong, when I’m humble, once I… when I… then I will be loved”

These messages run yet in my head and heart.

I fail to see love as something that is there for me before I am perfect, I don’t believe I’ll have it while I grow.

The Truth, the beautiful, awe-inspiring, mind-blowing Truth is that God’s Love is there for us no matter what we do. We are Loved – full stop.

He shows us we are worthy through this Gift.

And those on earth, who truly love us, do so before, during and after. They accept and love us just as we are. They place no demands on us nor expect a thing.

I have come to see that there is no such thing as conditional love.

True love, real love, is always unconditional.

And such a gift has the power to change and heal every one of us, if we would only let it in. 

1 Corinthians 13   

¹ If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 

Bible Verse: New International Version (emphasis added)

Do you catch yourself trying to earn Love rather than just receive it?