I am scared of love. There. I said it.
I have spent years building secret walls around my heart. (None shall pass. NONE SHALL PAAAAAASS!!) I always thought I did this for a couple reasons. One, I have never seen a healthy loving relationship that lasted up close. I don’t think this has made me jaded as much as it has shown me that even true love takes a lot of work and most people are lazy. That is not a good combination for a high success rate. And I HATE failure. Second, I was (and am) afraid of rejection. In order to truly love someone, you have to let them see you for who you really are. The good and the bad. Sometimes I pick my nose in the car and wipe it under the seat. (See. Who wants to spend their life with that?) I am afraid that I will show someone the clearest picture of who I am and they will still reject it. Then I would have to ask, “Is there not enough good or beauty in me to make me worthy of love?” (Please understand that I know God has made me wonderfully and knows me better than I know myself and loves me fully. But do not be so quick to forget that man is an irrational creature swayed by emotion and insecurity.)
Yesterday I found a third reason.
Love is the great light. Loving another may not reveal anything about them, but it always reveals something about you. I know now that if I truly and deeply loved another it would reveal a great deal about my true nature. What you do and say each day with someone you love reveals your true character. Love forgives and this creates the opportunity for sin. Anger, jealousy, selfishness, laziness, and so much more is often given more room to grow in the confines of love. If I choose to love, this great light will shine brighter on my life and I am afraid of what it will reveal. I am afraid that after I see myself in this light that knows no shadows, I may not love myself. I have seen glimpses of what my nature can produce and it makes me cry out with all my heart to let me decrease and Jesus increase.
All this introspection has made me wonder about our culture. Have people subconsciously realized this fact about love? Is that why this culture has become so distant and closed off? Maybe people have learned that if they stop and try to help those in need, it will just highlight how little they actually care for others. Maybe people know deep down that if stop to listen to someone they will have to see how little patience they truly have?
Although the light of love can be a scary thing, it is meant to bring about change. God loves us the way we are. But He also loves us enough to know that we will be happier when we are more like Him. When loves shines on us it offers the opportunity see the things inside us that need to change. It can be hard to see the ugliest parts of your self, but without seeing them, we will never become what we were created to be.
You have secret walls around your heart... I have brick walls and around the walls I have an electric fence and surveillance cameras. I know exactly what you mean about love. Loving is a beautiful feeling but it can cause you to lose yourself. You'll begin to change or maybe even control the things you say and do to without meaning to just to please the other person. Believe it or not my ex husband also used to pick his nose while driving and wipe it on the seat, I used to tease him about the "booger collection" on the seat, he'd just laugh =) and I usually make a horrible noise with my throat when I have allergies, sometimes in the middle of the night, nobody can stand it :-/ Anyway, I believe true love should be more like freedom (True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail. ~OSHO)
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