With Love

I'm so glad to be home! The really strange thing is I slept through the night while we were away, even when the beds were awful. Now that we're home, I'm back to waking up at 3:30. Go figure.


So, I heard from Joe yesterday about my paper that I handed in before we left for our trip. He asked me a question and I wanted to share it with you today. In my paper, I wrote that I needed to work on speaking the truth in love and Joe asked me how I was planning on working on that! I sat there in somewhat of a state of shock. I had been called on the carpet! Mainly, I had no idea how I was going to work on speaking the truth in love. I am one of those people who speaks the truth, than asks for forgiveness. I guess I'll pray that God gives me some insight, yeah, that's what I'll do! Well, as I read on, Joe also gave me some insight or as he called it, a comment.


Lots of times when people say they have trouble telling somebody else the truth, or having even a gentle confrontation, is that we don't really know how to speck the truth in love to ourselves. The voice people often use to speak to themselves is critical and somewhat harsh. So for what it's worth, when we learn how to look at our truth with love, emphasis on "with love", we can often begin to be able to be that way with others too.
Holy Burritos! This man doesn't even know me, yet, he does! My truth...is I do speak to myself critically and very harshly at times. Probably more so than not. I think I'm trying to beat everyone else to it. See, if I say it, then when you say it, it doesn't hurt as bad cuz I've already said it. There is no love in it either. It's more like, how do I get through the day with the least amount of outside inflected pain? 


I also have to say, I'm not as good at this as I use to be. I find myself seeing what God sees, that I am the Beloved, even if I'm harder on myself than I need to be. To see ourselves "with love" is the challenge of our lifetime, don't you think? Learn how to look at our truth with love... Coming to grips with the idea that I'll never be perfect is huge. I will never be small enough, know enough, or be enough. I will never run fast enough, play my horn enough, or make enough pickles. But there comes a point where what you have is ok, even if it's not enough. Paul said that God's grace is sufficient, and I'm thinking that it's the only thing that fills that hole of not enough.  I'm not, but God is! 


That's how I'm going to work on speaking the truth in love! I'm going to look at my truth through God's eye's and know that I may never..., but God...