Hurt or loved?

I can't decide if I want to write this blog on being hurt or being loved.  The two are really so very closely related.  So many times it's the people that we have allowed to get close enough to love us are the very ones that hurt us most.  It is easier to toss off pain from someone that we have not allowed into our inmost space.  

Two weeks ago at church we talked about love and what it means to love people. Last night we talked about community and what it means to have and be in community with others.  The real sum of both weeks was that we all want to be loved and have a place to belong.  To be able to be ourselves and be accepted faults and all.  

Both of these weeks have been so hard for me.  Last week I was not feeling very loved and this week I was feeling very rejected.  Isn't it funny how on top of things God is? Both weeks, the last place I wanted to be was church and both weeks God spoke such a timely word to my heart.  

My buddy Jess says that the opposite of love, contrary to popular belief, is not hate but rather self love.  I think he is so right.  When we with hold our love from one another for any variety of reasons; fear, insecurity, protection or retaliation it really produces a pain like no other.  I think to truly love someone is to put their needs before your own.  That is the example we have in Jesus.

I think so many times the reason that we withhold hold love from each other is because we have been hurt.  So we guard our hearts to not feel that pain again. I felt the Lord give me such a great analogy for this. Luke 5:36-39 in the amplified bible says this:

He told them a proverb also: No one puts a patch from a new garment on an old garment; if he does, he will both tear the new one and the patch from the new [one] will not match the old [garment].

God has created us to give and receive love.  When we stop giving love especially because we have been hurt, we are trying to do a patch job that just won't work.  Our efforts to protect ourselves will never match what God has made us for and ultimately hurt us further. 

Thankfully there is an answer. God tells us Isaiah 61 that He sent Jesus to bind up the broken hearted. When we take our brokenness to Him - all of it, being brutally honest with Him about our fear, insecurity, our need for protection and/or retaliation, - then he is able to heal us and make us whole again.  Whole to give again and to receive again. Whole to consider others needs before our own.

Jesus, may I be quick to bring my broken heart to you. I need your healing. I want to be saturated and satisfied in you so that I am free to give and receive the way you created me to. I want to be free to put others needs in front of mine. Thank you that your Kingdom is a kingdom of opposites.