Someone is Present Here and Now, and Loves You

We are made for love. We want to love one another with all sincerity and earnestness. In fact we are called to real self-giving love, here and now, in the circumstances of our daily life.

But here is the rub: we seem to want anything other than the actual life we have, with its often obscure challenges and demands. Why do we always look for ways to escape?

Lets face it. When we hear about "real loving," we say "yes, of course, that's wonderful," and yet we still try to run away, or else we chafe under the weight of what seems like an imposed task. Why are we burdened? What are we afraid of?

Perhaps we are afraid to love because we think we have to make it happen by ourselves. We find no power within ourselves to love. We want to, but we can't. Everything in us feels bent, distorted, tainted by the monster of our ego. And we think that all we have is our own brokenness.

But this is not true. We are not alone. First and fundamentally, before and within everything else, we are loved. We begin to give ourselves in love when we say "yes" to the love that is being given to us.

There is a Someone, right now, who says to each and every one of us, "I love you. You are precious to me.You are beautiful." We cannot begin to imagine how much we are loved and cherished in this very moment. 

Our hearts are not lying to us. The Other we are seeking is already with us, and begs us to open our hearts.

"You are beautiful."

"But I don't deserve to be loved," you say. "I am full of my own guilt."

But you are loved by Someone who is forgiveness and mercy, who will forgive everything. Everything.

Let yourself be forgiven and empowered by the One who has come into the world and history so as to be present in your real life, to be with you.

Open your heart. Let yourself be loved.