Dear One,
I know that you are so aware of your flaws. These sharp flaws that you like to keep secret, quietly hidden, in the hope that others won’t notice; won’t see the failings, the selfishness, the impatience, the ugliness that you wish wasn’t there. Your children see some of it, they’re the closest, stung by the sharp words and intolerance and their willing forgiveness makes it no easier to accept and wrap yourself around these flaws of yours. You know that you are the only mother they have, so you wonder that they accept more than they should, for their need of you. I know all of this. I know the things that weigh heavy and wring you out sometimes.
But this is all with the closest ones, in your home, with whom you live and love day-in, day-out. They also see the deep goodness in you; the night time love of stroking foreheads back to sleep; traffic-jammed school runs with chatter and hands held; the steady rhythm of love that covers them over and over again. And so here with them, it’s easier to slide over the flaws, to right-size them into proper perspective, that they are simply a part and not the whole of you.
But it’s not the same when they are noticed by those outside. There’s that particular one, that’s been joked and commented about with affection by friends and workmates. Your ability to talk fast and long. But it’s also been thrown up in the height of arguments, with the heat of frustration and distaste. And you try and change it, be different, mould yourself to what’s wanted. But it runs deep, linked to the pattern and speed of your thoughts and so effort is short-lived and hard to hold onto, like liquid through fist.
It’s easy to look at this flaw and see it as a reflection of you, of being too much, too demanding, maybe even selfish and self-absorbed. But that’s not how I see it. Instead of looking at others’ reactions and seeing that as a measure of your unloveliness, look at your flaw and see it as a measure of my capacity to love. Just look at Me. Just still your heart and look at the Groom. Because just as a groom looks at his bride as she walks towards him and his face breaks open and his heart overspills with unrestrained love, so I look at you in these moments and my love swells and surrounds and pulls you in close, bringing those flaws closest to My heart. Because that’s where they need to be. Your flaws both measure and respond to My capacity to love.
My love always makes room. For the darkest parts, the hardest parts. The parts that cannot find rest elsewhere; the ones that push people away, that hide, retreat and dance around the stinging shame. My love can handle what others’ cannot.
You see, each and every one of you is working hard to live, to move through struggle, to handle challenge and conflict, to find one’s own place, to satisfy wants and needs. There is a deep ache, a deep longing to be seen and known from the time of birth and sometimes these needs are cast adrift, miss their mark and are left unanswered and unheard. And so people busily move around, in and out of each others’ orbits, towards and away, sometimes able to give love, sometimes seeking to take it; looking to connect and sometimes starving for the old gaps to be filled, when it’s the end of a long day or at times of pressure and stress.
And so, when people respond to your flaws with impatience and dislike, this does not measure you, this measures them. It measures their need, their own lack of reserves and their inability to make room for you at that moment. It measures humanity. It measures the human heart and it’s finite capacity to give and to love; its fear of hurt, of mistreatment, of being used and let down. It’s the human heart’s state of constant need and it’s struggle to look beyond its own self at times.
But My love is complete. It holds no fear, no restlessness and no unmet need. It expects nothing and takes nothing from you. My love can bring you close without fear of being hurt or overwhelmed, without a need to control. My love is an ocean reaching beyond the galaxies of time that cannot be measured or grasped, with a heavy depth that can never be plummed. My love radiates with pure burning life when its purpose to bring you close and restore all that has been lost is allowed to begin. I never recoil, never retreat. I move towards, always towards. Enveloping, surrounding, making new, completing the glorious beauty that I crowned you with right back at the start. Never believe that the human response you have received is ever a marker of Me. It is not. It is the opposite of all that I am.
Your measure is in My gaze. Your value in My eyes. So just look at Me. Look at the Groom.