Tonight I read the title of my assigned reading for my Evangelism & Discipleship class, instantly I felt I didn't want to read this stupid chapter...I HATE IT! But I read on, then in an instant I was balling my eyes out.
The first few paragraphs gripped my heart so much that I thought I would share it:
"There comes a time in the spiritual life when one of the major things God is up to is to loving help us see ourselves more clearly. This is a most challenging element of the spiritual life, one that most of us shrink from with more than a little bit of dread. Some of us have been so shaped by shame-based family or church systems that we resist entering into deeper levels of self-knowledge for fear of feeling debilitated by shame or swept away by remorse. For others, our sense of worth is so fragile or our perfectionism so pronounced that we are not sure we could bear facing the truth of our own darkness without becoming completely unraveled.
And yet one of the deepest longings of the human heart is to be known and loved unconditionally. We long to know that someone in this world knows everything about us and loves us anyway. Beyond the surface affirmations that come through our achievements and social contacts, we long to be seen and celebrated for that which is deeply good and worthwhile in us, and we long for a love that is strong enough to contain our frailty and sinfulness. Something in us knows that such love is a transforming power.
The problem is that most of us aren't wiling to take the risk of being so completely. There is always something we're hiding for fear that we will be rejected in the end. We may have gotten close to the possibility of this kind of love at one time or another, but we haven't known how to let it penetrate our defenses so that we can receive it. All of us would prefer to have the experience of unconditional love without having to take the risk of letting someone know us that well!
The desire and the need for unconditional love are heightened as we become more aware of those places where we are not like Christ - an inevitability of spiritual journey. As we become more spiritually attuned, we become painfully aware of how negative thought patterns and relating patterns hurt ourselves and others. We see the places where we are incapable of love and true self-giving. We realize that our responses to wounds we've received have caused us to become hard and self-protective. We notice the subtleties of our jealousies our mean-spiritedness, our manipulations, our controlling ways, and our mistrust of God and others that keeps us from giving ourselves wholeheartedly Having tried every self-help approach we know, we are devastated to admit that real, fundamental change is beyond our reach. The heart cries out to be free from its bondage."
