Dreams of Life

Love and Life and All that Great Stuff

The first thing I would like to say is that this is going to be a very long post.

This entry I actually wrote a couple of weeks ago, and originally it was for a story prompt but it turned more into a personal reflection journal entry. So here it is.

Sometimes people tell me the best thing you can do for someone if you truly love them, is to give them space, let them go, which is something I have had to do recently. Partly for myself, but I realize that even as I am writing this I am doing a favor to both him and to me, even though I know this is what I need, this is probably something that he needs as well. I don’t know whether he recognizes the significance of what I have done, but I do and God understands and so I’m sure he respects me for this thought.
I have recently called up my ex-boyfriend/ best friend and told him that for a while I could not continue talking to him, not because it was something I wanted to do but more because it was something I needed to do. I truly love him, and yet I knew that this separation is something I needed. God has been trying to get me to do one thing that I haven’t been doing: rely on him and let him love me as he desires to do so. It is something I have been rejecting for sometime.
He is also going through some serious struggles within his life and this separation of me and him, I am almost positive is an act of love towards him, even it doesn’t seem so to me at times, it is a very important and significant step that I have taken, on my way to rely on my heavenly Father in the way that I should.
I have never experienced love and loss more then I have in the past couple of weeks and even though I know I don’t know everything about love and sacrifice, I am sure of the fact that I know more then I ever did before, because I have experienced it first hand. I have experienced the loss of the love of someone I love so deeply. And even though I knew he loves me, at this time it is impossible for him to give it to me and so even though it is there, it is a love that at least for a time I have lost and that’s a really hard thing to realize.
The thing is, now going through what I am going through I am aware of the fact that God’s love will never be taken away from me and it is my choice if I choose to reject something so precious. I also realize that I never want to reject something so precious and amazing, because being loved unconditionally with a love that will never be taken away from us, I something so amazing and so powerful and worth it no matter what the struggle. He will love us no matter what we do or what comes our way, and that is completely worth it. He wants to be our rock to stand on and if we accept his gift of love, we will never go thirsty and he will be there for us.
This is something I have come to understand just recently as the result of my own breakup and the loss of the love of someone I hold so dear to my heart and love more deeply then I could ever imagine. I could never imagine loving anyone else, but I don’t know what God has in store for me in the future, and I know that if we are not meant then I will stop loving him. I know I still have a lot to learn about relying on God and I know I still have a lot to learn about God’s love and I will never fully know how to rely on God completely and I will never be able to comprehend just how much God loves me because I am human and finite, but I have begun to understand in a way that I never have before, and I know if I let him God will help me get through this and continue teaching me in ways that he loves me and the way that I rely on him.
I was supposed to be writing a story about love because that is what my prompts are for but instead I just got caught up in my own experience that I could do nothing but write about it instead of writing a story about love, I used personal examples and wrote almost an essay on love in the way in my life, especially in the past couple of months that I have experienced it to be.
I think though a personal testimony about how love has shaped the lives of both me and others around me is far more effective to those reading it then a story would have been. I could write a story about my experience and my conversation and yet it wouldn’t be as personal as I would have liked to convey.
My life has been a whirlwind of emotions over the past couple of weeks, and even months and at times I don’t know how to explain these emotions or these thoughts, and yet they are there because I experience them. I have gone through grief and love and unexpected confessions and thoughts these past couple months more then I have ever known in my entire life. And yet through this whole situation God has given me such a peace about the decisions that I have made within the past couple of weeks, a peace I have never experienced before and a strength that goes beyond my understanding that I am very grateful for. I have never experienced these things before and I love this personal experience so that I can truly know for myself that no matter how much in the past I have denied that God was in my life, he truly is present and working in my lif3e all the time whether I see it or not, and I’m very glad of this fact because I definitely, as evidence in the past couple of months, I can’t do it on my own and what I think is best for me is not always what is best for me, if that makes any sense at all. I wish I was always right in when I knew what was best for me because then my life wouldn’t be nearly as complicating as it is. But I guess that’s why we are not always right, so that we can realize that we need something more then just ourselves to survive in this world. We need God to survive in this world, he is the only one we need to realy on.
This is written in a response to a number of emotions I am going through hand as soon as I finish writing Dave’s letter within my journal this will go in, along with my thoughts on a number of things I have been contemplating over the last little while. This breakup has led me into more understanding of God then I have ever experienced before and helps me to realize just how little I know. The more you learn about God the more you become aware of the fact of how little you truly do know about him if that makes any sense at all. To my fellow bible college students I’m sure you all at least have a comprehension of what this means. To my teachers, I’m sure you understand this as well. To those who do not know, I pray that you would get close enough to God to begin to understand where I am going with this.
But it doestn’ matter how much or how little I understand about God. As long as I am always striving to get to know him more and be aware of how little I do know and of the importance of relying on him and if I do these things, even though sometimes it may seem as if I’m getting nowhere, and I seem dead, I need to strive to know him more and more all the time. That’s Gods deepest desire, to have us know him, to be in relationship with him. Saving souls is definitely a priority, however instead of being focused on saving souls the most important thing is to know God and love him by loving and serving that which he has created.
Love is an action, not merely an emotion, although it is that as well. Love is more an action then anything else and it is also a choice. You need to choose to love people. Love is not always easy, that is a fact I do know, because if love was easy then I wouldn’t be going through this turmoil in my heart right now. Loving someone is more then just saying “I love you.” That is important, however you show your love by your actions, how you love them, how you treat them and what you do for them. I always heard my dad telling my mom that he loved her. He would also tell her that he would do stuff around the house, like fix things and change things, but most of the time he wouldn’t do anything. He would say he would do something and then he wouldn’t do it, so I kind of understand to a point why my mom always got so frustrated with him. I would get frustrated over something like that as well. He was promising to do something for her because he loved her but he wasn’t showing her that love because he wasn’t doing anything. It’s the same as we say, “Faith without works is dead”. The same thing goes for love, I believe that love without works is dead because if you are not showing the person that you love them through practical ways like doing odd jobs around the house, especially when it’s promised that you would, then it is dead. It’s the same with faith, we hear sermons and hear things that we should be doing and we walk away and are like, “yes that sounds like a good idea,” but then we never go out and do it, it never really shaped us. We listened but we didn’t hear. That is dead, and has not changed us at all and have no effect in our daily life. It’s the same with loving someone without showing them, that love is dead.
I know that we all struggle with this, however if we know that we struggle with this and it is something we need to changed, and we strive towards changing it, then I think we are well off. Love works the same as faith, if we don’t live out and show it, it’s not shaping us and it’s not shaping those around us and it’s dead. We need to show our love, and sometimes like in my situation right now, the best way to do that is by separating yourself from the one that you love, even if it only temporary as in my situation.
Why is this the best thing you can do at times? Because of the struggles that other person is going through, if you were to not separate yourself, it could make it harder for them to overcome those struggles. Not only that, but the attachment is so great that to let go because of your situation, you need to completely let go, even if that means not even talking to them for a while. I became so dependant on Dave that it was not good for me, I needed to be dependant and relying on God and I couldn’t do that if I was still talking to Dave even as my best friend because then I would still be going to him about all things that are going on in my life and he would still be the one I was relying on, maybe not completely but greatly and then that attachment that I need him would and could only grow to be stronger and then if we ever completely cut off ties with each other, it would be even harder on me. So separation was good for him because of things he is going through and separation is good for me because of things that I am going through and struggling with.
Love is something that is worth it. Don’t ever hate being in love, if that is one thing of advice I would like to say. Don’t hate being in love, because it is an amazing thing and love is a gift from God. Don’t hate being in love, because I have never hated the fact that I love Dave. Love being in love. I truly believe in the statement, it’s better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all.

I wrote this about love a couple of weeks ago, but I would like to add a few things now, that after talking and listening in my Worldview class I have come to realise. We were talking about what we do if we knew the future. I wouldn’t want to know the future. If I knew before I started dating Dave that are relationship would end in the way that it did, I probably would have never started dating him because I wouldn’t have wanted to be hurt. We want to guard ourselves against the things that hurt us in our life, isn’t that we always say, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. But when we are hurt, because believe me we all will be, we need to accept the fact that we have been hurt and accept what God has taught you through that hurt that he would have never been able to teach you any other way. I believe that in a sense you have to embrace the hurt when you are hurt and truly be honest with yourself about why you were hurt and let God help you work through your hurts. I would have never learnt some of things God has taught me in the past couple of months if I had hurt so deeply. Although it’s not a pleasant thing, the outcome can be good. It can change us and mature us in ways that we could never imagine before. Hurt is not always a bad thing, we look at it that way but I don’t believe that to be true. It makes us stronger and it helps us learn lessons we could never have learnt any other way, and it helps us mature, even in small ways. It builds character.
Just don’t be afraid to be in love. Don’t hate being in love, love being in love. And don’t be terribly afraid of being hurt, because being hurt changes, being hurt matures and being hurt teaches. Don’t forget that.

posted by Gavers @ 8:45 p.m.