Becoming Loved

“It doesn’t matter what the world says about you, it doesn’t matter what that man or woman said to you, you’re not trash, you’re not your mistake, you’re not weird, and you’re not “nothing.” You’re not alone, you’re not worthless and you’re most certainly not what you did back then. Most of all, you’re not rejected.”

You ever think about the fact that human love is most times conditional. I must be a certain type of person for someone else to love me or it’s about what I can offer you. I don’t like it when people’s lists for why they love someone is comprised of action verbs, because if you love me for my actions, anyone can do that for you. What does that have to do with me? It’s a different experience for someone to genuinely see you for who you are and not be affected by your mistakes, bad behavior, flaws, or if you have absolutely nothing to give.

Do you truly believe people would love you if they knew the skeletons in your closet? It’s easy to support who we feel is the victim or the person who is justified, but can we love the perpetrator? The murderers, rapists, drug dealers, or thieves? They have a story too. I know it’s not in our human nature to consider the details of people’s lives, which is quite ironic being that we pick and choose in what details we pay attention to support the narrative we have or want to have of another person. I watch the news after a Caucasian student who has conducted a school shooting, and the story line is this child has had some sort of upbringing that revolved around mental health issues.

Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooter, had divorced parents and was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. Audrey Hale, an “amazing” artist turned school shooter in Nashville was apparently suffering from an emotional disorder. However, Christopher Darnell Jones, a football player turned shooter at the University of Virginia, was consistently in trouble with purchasing handguns the year of the shooting and was convicted of a misdemeanor concealed weapons violation. His father said he was paranoid leading up to the shooting. I’m not fully making this a race issue, but I am saying, we pick and choose who we humanize and who we decide deserves grace. I searched Lanza and Hale and learned about their parents, their upbringing, and how shocked their community was by their actions. Their upbringing and mental health were stamped all over the news and internet to shape how society saw them. It took some true research to learn that Jones, however, was bullied. He grew up in Richmond in a dangerous area and was often responsible for caring for his younger siblings. His mental health didn’t seem to be considered. We choose whose deeds are considered worse and what reason is more understandable to conduct murder.

“You ever think about the fact that human love is most times conditional”

We behave the same way in our relationships in deciding who we want to be friends with, whose sins are easier to deal with, and whose we cannot. We are all entitled to make those decisions and you are free to decide who you should and will surround yourself with, but this post isn’t solely about the decisions you make about others, it’s also for the decisions that are made about you; The narrative you don’t fully have control over, which are the things that people will reject you for, such as the personality traits, the wrongs you have done, or who you want to be. It’s society’s expectations that have been set for you that you don’t meet. If you were a news title, what would the world say about you? How would they label you? A victim? A perpetrator? A thief? A liar? Selfish? A rapist? A whore, a hoe, a thot? For the streets? Scandalous? Smart? Loyal? Uneducated? Dangerous? That’s not all you are, of course not. You have a past, you have family, you weren’t always like that, and someone did something to you, but that’s not what people always care about, is it? It’s the labels.

This post is to remind you that there’s a God who doesn’t label you. He doesn’t dehumanize you or define you by the narrative that the world has created for you or even the narrative that you have created for yourself. Yes, I’m sure you have created a narrative for yourself. I used to think I wasn’t good enough and my circumstances showed what I was worth and how good it was ever going to get for me. I defined the love I had for myself based on how I was treated. I was an abused trash bag that became a dumping ground for other people’s trash, hoping that eventually they would learn to see me otherwise.

I look back and realize I didn’t truly understand what true love was and what it’s supposed to look like. I knew my mother loved me, but it doesn’t seem like it was enough to not seek someone else’s crumbs elsewhere. My father made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with me and didn’t feel that I deserved an ounce of an explanation as to why. What did I do? I look at people and it pains me to say, whether people choose to admit it or not, they will damage, hurt, or neglect a child when that child disrupts. My father remarried and had a whole new family. I was a disruption. I was heavily mistreated by my stepmother and her children, and I was more of a tolerated burden. It’s not easy for some women or men to take responsibility and truly love the responsibilities and children of someone else. No child should feel tolerated because they disrupt the family image you have set for yourself. My daughter is 16. She temporarily lived with her father who is now living with another woman and has a child of her own. Her father isn’t home most days, traveling for work so my daughter was subjected to being cared for by the girlfriend. I understood her level of discomfort. The girlfriend had created this family unit, and my daughter wasn’t part of it.

Growing up, my mother and father did their best to create a blended family, both having children from previous relationships and then having one mutual child of their own. My mother, bless her heart, treated all of us the same. My stepfather didn’t. I can only speak for myself, but I often felt tolerated not loved. My stepfather struggled with things he didn’t share until I was an adult, and I could only be grateful that he finally admitted it. I felt less crazy.

As I got older, I settled for crumbs. I took being mistreated for seconds of comfort and called it love. He has to love me, I convinced myself. I remember I was pregnant with my youngest son throwing a family birthday party in my backyard for my nephew and I listened to Calvin, tell my parents that he did not love me and did not want to be with me because of the things I did to him, as he blatantly admitted to them the types of abusive things he did to me. I watched my mother cry and I felt so stupid as he victimized himself as he admitted that I was the victim and stormed out because no one agreed with him. A week later Calvin came to me apologizing, explaining to me that he didn’t mean it. You know how I get; I don’t be thinking. That was the excuse I got and here I am thinking, I knew he loved me. I allowed Calvin and Allan to curse at me, and belittle because I longed for the apology, the affection, and the temporary fix that followed. It was better than feeling alone and rejected.

I didn’t only deal with this in relationships. I offered all I had in friendships, knowing I wasn’t receiving it in return, or their friendships came with limitations. I couldn’t be all I wanted to be, or I had to conform to who they thought I should be. They didn’t reciprocate unless it was beneficial for themselves or had limitations on what problems they would see me through. My ex best friend, whom I dearly loved, (very complicated story) had a child with and got engaged to Allan after our friendship began. She lied to me and then asked me to accept it right before the shut down for Covid. Even to offer your friends love and genuine care without reciprocity is a form of rejection. So, what is love without rejection? Who can give me love without it?

There is a reason why the bible, in Isaiah 2:22 says, “do not trust in a mere human, who only has breath in his nostrils. What is he really worth?” The Message Bible says, “quit scraping and fawning over mere humans who are so full of themselves.” The New International Version asks, “why hold them in esteem?” We long for human interaction, of course. We want relationships and friendships, and they are supposed to reflect God’s intention of them but most times, people can disappoint you even in short frustrating situations. We are all different, with different purposes, expectations, ways of dealing with conflict, communication styles, trauma, and experiences. The problem isn’t in wanting these relationships, the problem is when we scrape and fawn over these relationships before we even trust that God is the source of it all. He gives it to us first. He is the ultimate example of love, family, and friendships and we are supposed to mirror it, but how can we mirror what we don’t truly and intimately understand.

Fawn: (of a person) give a servile display of exaggerated flattery or affection, typically in order to gain favor or advantage:

When you see Noah and Enoch walking with God, it was metaphoric for friendship. They were friends. They talked intimately. Moses spoke with God face to face as you would a friend (Exodus 33:11) and Abraham was literally called a friend of God (James 2:23). Let’s look at the friendship of Jonathan and David in 1 Samuel, where it describes Jonathan loved David as he loved himself. What is true friendship? John 15:9- 14. This tells you the expectation of how to be friends one to another and how to become a friend of God. Become a friend of God by being obedient. People say I am a friend of God and I think are you really? Are you truly a friend? Some of us do not know what the true intent of friendship is. Jesus says love one another as I have loved you, and what better way to be a true friend than to lay your life down for your friends. Some of us won’t even put up with each other’s issues let alone lay a life down. What’s amazing is if I’m obedient to the will of God, he’s, my friend. It doesn’t matter what my title is, my mistakes, my narrative, or who I used to be. The only clause, just follow his command.

As a friend, Jesus didn’t say love me the way he wanted to be loved to the disciples, he offered friendship, guidance, and love for who people were. He didn’t ask them to conform, he used their strengths and gifts. He knew Thomas was doubtful, so he gave him confirmation. He knew they had questions, so he answered. He knew Peter was bold but certainly wanted an unwavering faith even though he faltered quite often. He certainly allowed Peter to make a few mistakes, eventually using them as strengths.

Look at how parallel our relationships are to who God is to us. We are to our children what God is to us. Jesus was the perfect example of friendship. Wives reflect love in marriage as obedience and submission, and husbands reflect love as sacrifice and death. How does God know we love him back after he sent his son, a piece of himself to die, in obedience. When I learned just how intense that is in both friendships and relationships, I realized, my life is not my own. Do I want to lose it, of course not, so God please don’t test me out, however, my life is truly not my own. I am a vessel of God and that means everything I do should reflect who he is and his level of consistency. He is every bit of every fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. If that same spirit lives on the inside of me, am I not supposed to be that for other people?

What we fail to understand as people already in Christ, we are supposed to be that for everyone else, but never expect it from people. God never said people are supposed to do that for you too. You can only control you, and even if people never do it for you, you do it anyway. Jesus was rejected by the same people he came to save and yet he died for us anyway. The good thing is when you learn that God already offers you these things, you don’t need to scrape and fawn over it from humans. There’s a peace in knowing, God’s my friend. I get to talk to him about my day and he loves me despite. He listens to my flaws and uses them as strengths.

In the natural side of things, why would I want a man to be my husband if he’s not going to meet the standard that God intended? God is the head of my life and my household. I’ve gotten to the point now, I say, God, I don’t know if you remember or not, because I know you busy and all, but the electric bill is due tomorrow. Just making sure you got that. It gets paid! He causes people to give to you. I have had so many testimonies in the last year of people giving to me. I haven’t had a job in over a year and God will supply or grant favor in the oddest of ways. If I trust God to take care of my household, the way I would a husband, and God doesn’t let me down, I plan to be very, very, VERY selective in who I choose next, because then my husband becomes the head of my household, and if he doesn’t love me as much as God intended, we have a problem. I’m still going to submit because at the end of the day a wife’s role doesn’t come with a clause, but that’s hard! I can go talk to God myself about this, why do I have to wait for my husband to possibly screw it up! That’s a whole other kind of becoming and I’m not there yet. One day, but NOT today. I am very happy and secure in my marriage with Jesus because he never lets me down and the bills are on time, ALL the time. I can ask for simple things like detergent or how to deal with my children and he always has the best solutions. This morning, I told God, I don’t know what to pray, so today, my prayer is to just lay with you in your presence and I received visions of me just hugging a figure. I can’t explain what the figure looked like. I can tell you the figure made me feel safe and full of joy and peace. God answers the little things.

I sometimes ask God for friendships, and I realized I have them. God first and foremost, is my friend. I talk to him. Sometimes I pray pray, and other times, I just talk. Here’s one:

Me: God, did you see Phoenix’s attitude today? I’m trying not to react out of frustration but everything in me wants to beat her like they used to back in the day. An old-fashioned beating! If she rolls her eyes at me again, I’m going to lose it. She is late almost every day for school. She can be SO MEAN!

God: Love her anyway.

Me: Excuse me?!?!?

God: Love her anyway. Before you both go to bed tonight, lay down with her and hold her. When you wake her up for school in the morning, lay with her, hug her, kiss her, and then let her get up.

Me: I’ll try it your way.

Two days in a row Phoenix was a lot nicer and on time for school.

Another one:

Me: God, you gave me this gift, and I don’t even know what gift it is. I thought you were going to perform a miracle and I’m a little disappointed because I don’t know if I’m the problem. Am I the problem? Maybe I didn’t hear right. What do you want me to do? I don’t even know what this is.

God: Go read about Elisha. Learn prophets.

Me: I’m going to call my mom and see if she can explain it to me really quick, because I’m already reading about Saul and David. I’m not sure what Elisha has to do with anything. *Calls mom and receive brief synopsis* I still don’t get it.

God: Read about Elisha.

Me: *reads 1 and 2 Kings* Well that was insightful. And? Not sure what this story has to do with me. Maybe I’m not hearing right. I don’t know. I’m so confused. I don’t know what’s going on.

I really went on with my day so confused and disappointed that maybe I wasn’t hearing God or maybe I was thinking too much or not enough about what God was telling me to do. I thought my thinking was weird about everything. I second guessed every miracle he showed me, I will share all that in my next post. God truly showed me a lot and every time something didn’t look right, I was so confused. As my mother would say, “your flesh is warring with your spirit.”

God: I’m trying to make you like Elisha, but you keep acting like Thomas.

Me: *gasp* oh woooooooow.

I know he wasn’t trying to insult me, but I certainly felt insulted. I was really like wait a minute, Thomas was really loyal and obedient, and God said but he was really doubtful. My friend was telling me I need to work on my faith. I needed to trust our relationship more than I was. I was second guessing my friend at every point, and he was really calling me out. I prayed for blind faith, and God told me that blind faith was needed for my purpose and here was the explanation. Ok God! Touche. I started this blog not understanding my purpose and he wouldn’t give no answer just clues, and I’ve earned more of an answer. He said stop with the doubting. I’m working on it.  

What comforts me is building a relationship with God has taught me just how much he loves us. He always makes the first move. He made the ultimate loving sacrifice and still wants to be our friend. Can you imagine a king, or the president, sacrificing their child to save your life and still begging to be your friend even though you turned their back on them? What about one of your own friends? He is the ultimate friend and husband to me. He’s everything I need him to be. Learning that makes me very picky about my friendships, but it also gives me less expectations of people. I will love you, because I can only control me, but I don’t expect someone to love me that much and those that I truly believe do are my friends.

I didn’t think I had friends in human form, but I realized, my sister is my friend. We may joke but I do recognize her heart. I can say that God has given me the ability to see people’s heart and hers is beautiful. I’ve seen a few people that way recently and I tell them “Your heart is beautiful” or “my spirit just loves you.” Just because we’re family doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I do recognize that she is one of the few people that I have learned that in her heart she does love just as hard as I do and in the true way it was intended. We may not sacrifice the same way and have different ways of communicating but she’s my best friend. I didn’t realize how much of a friend she was until we had our first fight as adults. We really had a screaming match with one another, and I had to learn there was a way for both of us to be authentically who we were as individuals and accept each other. As you can see, I talk about her a lot. Despite my flaws, mistakes, things I did or went through in the past, I genuinely feel accepted and seen by her. She is honest with me in my right and in my wrong. She teaches me and guides me when necessary. She supports me and I love her. We may joke and say absolutely not when it comes to giving up our lives for one another, but somehow I know when forced to make a quick decision, she would come to my rescue, and I hope she knows in her heart that I would do the same. I want to be her Jonathan. I’m such a dork.

I think we all get so set in boundaries and protecting ourselves that we forget that we indirectly reject people more than we love, guide, accept, and teach people. Being supervised by God even in my daily routine means he guides me on when or when I shouldn’t help people and how, but I should never expect reciprocity. Love is not just an emotion; it’s an action and I will love you in secret and in public. I don’t need to tell the world what I did for someone or that I did the work of the Lord. I don’t recall God walking around boasting and telling everybody, or rubbing in your face what he does for you on a daily. We are so concerned with rebuking and shunning people away for our own “peace,” fear of getting hurt, or having too much to deal with. Peace is in God and vengeance is his.

Every time Allan comes around, I’m nice to him. I’ve invited him to eat dinner with us in our home because he said he wanted to spend time with our daughter and to let her see that we could get along. He has eaten at my home at least twice and even taken a nap on my couch. It’s really invasive and uncomfortable for anyone when a person is pure evil to you and very abusive. At first, I was upset because not even a few months later I was the enemy again and I was the problem. I was the evil mother who didn’t deserve my daughter and so much more. He talked badly about me to my daughter and all sorts of things. At first, I was disappointed with myself. I shouldn’t have been nice. Every time Calvin comes around, I’m nice! If you’re hungry, I’ll feed you. He’s rude and ends up somehow being disrespectful and then he gets escorted out politely, but I’m always loving.

I stopped regretting showing them love when one day Calvin made me mad enough for me to yell back at him and he immediately said to me, “I just wanted to see if this God thing was real or not.” I became furious, but he had a point in the since that people watch us. Sometimes our actions as people in Christ deter people from a relationship with God. We are the example. Every time Allan and Calvin decide they want to be evil, I get comfort in knowing that I have grown enough to be able to do the right thing regardless, but also knowing that it’s not up to me. God got it. Every time Calvin gets in one of his little disrespectful fits, I just shrug and let God deal with it because I am happy to be an example. Why not? I trust that God has me covered and there is no fear in love. It’s like having an overprotective best friend who fights on your behalf, and you must hold them back. I have gotten to a place where I ask God for permission on if I should or how to help a person. He knows what people need more than I do.

In my opinion, when we become so consumed with our own lives and our own problems, I don’t believe you wholeheartedly trust God. God loves us and tells us that if we seek the kingdom of God everything else is taken care of. I know we have our own families to deal with and we have to protect our homes, but don’t use that as an excuse to judge, reject, be lazy, or selfish. You know what you’re doing. I know you’re tired, we’re all tired. Not much of an excuse either. God provides us with the resources to help other people. Why would he give you more if you’re selfish with what you already have? You’re not giving to church or giving to the people in it or around it. I’m not just talking about money, I’m talking about your time, your energy, your gifts, your love. If you don’t understand the importance of giving and loving others and how much it influences your relationship with God, just look at Matthew 6:14-15, you can’t even begin to be forgiven until you forgive other people. Jesus took on all the sins of the world hanging on the cross and he forgave the people who were in the middle of killing him.

It’s crazy, because the more I move forward the more in love I become with God’s consistency. Everything he required of us, he also required of his own son. He shows that through his word that he loves the poor, the broken, the mean, the rapist, the whore, the angry, the fighter, the doubtful, and the murderers. There’s no one that can love me more than God and accept me for who I am. I don’t need any person to attempt to fill that void so when people fail me, I go to the friend I have in God. The right person will join in my already existing friendship and if they can’t be friends with God, I can love you, but you can’t be my friend.

For so long I looked for love to replace the feeling of rejection, so I was liable to take any kind of treatment, but I am here to encourage you in knowing that it doesn’t matter, and I wasn’t entirely wrong. It doesn’t matter what the world says about you, it doesn’t matter what that man or woman said to you, you’re not trash, you’re not your mistake, you’re not weird, and you’re not “nothing.” You’re not alone, you’re not worthless and you’re most certainly not what you did back then. Most of all, you’re not rejected. No one here on this earth can love, accept, guide, teach, and improve you like God can. If you want to know just how much, and how parallel our love to one another is, to the love of God read 1 John 4:7-21. God is love and it’s not just in who he is, it’s in what he did and what he does. He didn’t wait until we deserved that type of love, he showed it in hopes that we would willingly love him back. He’s such a gentleman. We must also love first without expectation. We love because that’s just who we are supposed to be, but it’s just nice to know, that whenever I fail, or when people fail me, God loves me anyway and is there for me. I’ll never lose sight of my worth again, but I will also never lose sight of my ultimate goal in loving and leading others without expectation. I trust God in everything, my life, my resources, my finances, my household, my children… everything. It took a while, but he loved me enough to prove his love for me even in small things. The least I can do is prove I love him too. If somebody continually saves your life and is there for you, how far would you go to prove to them that not only do you love and appreciate them, that you would do for them too? How desperate would you be to pay it forward by loving people the same way he loves you and without expectation, without judgement, without labels, and without unforgiveness? Would you love and give unselfishly and without expectation? Think about it!