My realization today is that I have always been the person in the room who has loved the hardest. The intensity of my love is fierce. Those who have known me describe me as ‘intense’, and people often have to create distance from me because I am more than they can handle. Since I was born, I have poured out all my love to those around me. But since I was conceived, I was not loved like I love. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. I have made peace with this, my reality. But I realize today it has been the most characteristic thing about me, and the thing which–at the bottom of everything else–defines me.
The bible speaks about the devil as a roaring lion who prowls around seeking whom he may devour. That is what I feel like, except instead of wanting to destroy someone, I want to love with them. I understand today that all my life I have been seeking those who love like I do. I have been searching out love, REAL love. I have found the world’s best versions of love. But it was never sustainable. And to be honest, it was usually because the other person or people fell away, or backed away, or just could not sustain it. I am NOT saying I was never at fault; I was. I am a sinner extraordinaire. But for the most part, it wasn’t me, it was them who did not want the intense love I brought.
The Ancient Greeks had different types of love, elaborated in four main categories:
- Eros: sexual passion and desire.
- Philia: deep friendship.
- Ludus: playful love.
- Agape: love for everyone.
- Pragma: longstanding love.
I have had all these loves the world has to offer. But I did not know agape love until Christ saved me. ALL of those other loves failed me. And I know they fail others.
For a long time, I thought that my fellow Christians would be able to share–and return–that elusive agape love with me. But I have found even they are really not capable of it. Yes, they have the fruits of the Spirit we look for to know who carries the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But they just don’t have it in the measure I do. I really don’t mean this to sound conceited. I don’t hold it in my heart that way, and I don’t think about it that way. It’s just that now that I am here in my walk with the Lord, and I have had opportunities to commune with born-again Christians, I see they are still not that much different than the world. Yes, they are different, and if the world were ending, they are who I would look to for solace, camaraderie, and comfort; but they still are not capable of meeting my love head-on.
Whereas loving others in the world, or unbelievers, they just sort-of take you like you are, and everything (and anything) goes. They don’t know truth or right from wrong because they don’t know the Word. That is a superficial, evil sort of love which isn’t really love at all, but it masks itself as love. Anyone can fake love for a while, because, “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15)
On the other hand, Christians know Truth, and the Word, but they want to put me in a box, they want to fence me in with their idea of what love is. Usually this involves some kind of expected behavior on my part. I am not talking biblical behavior. I believe in 100% of the word of God in the bible, and to err from the word of God is sin. I do not believe in taking away, or adding to, what the inspired word of God says. But most Christians have this learned churchy ideology that is not in the bible, or that they have extrapolated from the bible. It might be ‘legalistic’ but it is also ‘new agey and mystical’. And the love I have to offer doesn’t match it. So, then the undercurrent of tension sets in. I am not functioning in the way they think I should function; therefore I see doubt creep into their mind that maybe I am not a good Christian, or not walking with God. When the truth is, I have come to know, that I am walking with God more than they are. Then the distance begins to set in. Again.
I do not fit in a box. I never have and I never will.
What is this love, and why do I have it in larger measure? I have not really thought of it as a gift before, because it has always set me apart. And things that cleave you from others don’t usually feel like attributes, or gifts. But maybe it is a gift. Maybe God gives me the ability to love harder because I am honestly His messenger of love. I really don’t know any other viable explanations.
The world might try and label me as ‘co-dependent’ or ‘borderline personality disorder’ or ‘clingy’ or something like that. And I have been guilty of the actions that warrant these labels. But I am so much more than those things, and my love is PURE for the most part. I will not drown someone else to save myself. I usually always put others over myself. I am the one who walks away when the writing is on the wall, when people show they don’t really love me, or when people are mean to me.
So many people are mean. And I am talking about Christians here. Especially when they cannot conscribe me to their idea for me of what I should be or look like. They do not appreciate my unusual gifts such as healing. And they don’t want to even get close enough to me to see all the things below the surface that are hiding, waiting to be used by God. I have tried to analyze this phenomenon in my life ad nauseum and have not come much closer to elucidation, but I sense that people just can’t figure me out and literally don’t know what to do with me. I seem to confound people. Then because they don’t understand me, they distance themselves from me.
Their love doesn’t even scratch the surface of who I am.
So, I continue on, seeking in others the love I have been given in great measure. I have come to understand that I probably won’t find it on this earth, that it is otherworldly; it is God’s love from His realm. The best way I can honor this love I have been given is to share it with those He sends me and sends me to, because He has given me this ability to love deeply for a reason, and even if I am not sure exactly how to use it, He does. ❤
~Song of Mary~ 