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Live Like You Are Loved

February has been deemed the “Month of Love.” It’s a time when people show their affections to one another through gift-giving, date nights, and time spent together. At Rising Above, we view this month a little differently. In our realm, we deal with many people whose “love tanks” have been fractured or have a thick layer of dust that has settled at the bottom. Love can be triggering, painful, and a place people have learned is not safe.

If you’ve been hurt before, your idea of love may be misconstrued. As we step out and love, we learn from others’ responses to our love. If we get hurt, we learn “love is risky business”. If it repeatedly happens, we enter a place of self-protection that often comes along with destructive behaviours that wound others and further harm ourselves. Living from a place of not knowing you’re loved or not being able to feel loved because of past hurt is very lonely and isolating. When we can’t allow love into our hearts, we are depriving ourselves of vital emotional and spiritual nutrition. This lack of love can strew the way we view others, the world around us, and ourselves. We shut people out by refusing to be vulnerable and all relationships become risky. We will push loved ones away and wear a mask being ever so careful to not expose any part of our hearts that could be susceptible to pain. Instead of becoming “protected” within ourselves, we become prisoners shouting at others from behind the bars around our hearts.

We tend to try and fill our love tanks with the love of others – humans. God intended this to be beautiful and a blessing, but not our main source of love. When we open our hearts up with God’s love, it is one that is perfect and pure. It is the ultimate source of love because God IS love. His love for us knows no bounds and it is endless like the stars that fill the night sky. When you truly feel God’s love in your heart, you will experience a peace that is unexplainable. It’s a love that asks for nothing in return. It doesn’t ask you to change – but it inspires you to change. How could we ever think the love that humans have to offer would fill our hearts the way God’s love does?

After a lifetime of learning and analyzing the type of love the world has to offer, this can be an extremely foreign concept that there’s a love available that is completely perfect, pure, and free of charge. Believe us when we say we have seen the love of God blow prison doors off hardened hearts time and time again.

Kim Peters, an Inner Healing Facilitator at Rising Above, has this to say about bearing witness to the moments where people realize God’s love is real.

“It’s always the same. In the moments before their realization, everything is dark. I find myself sitting there with them in the darkest memory of their life anticipating the arrival of God’s truth. I know what’s about to happen, but the individual sitting across from me doesn’t because they don’t even know if God is real. And then…it happens. God speaks directly to their heart in that dark memory and reveals His truth. The moments that follow are beautiful. They will literally take a breath of new life and their countenance completely changes. There’s a look on their face that’s hard to describe. At first, they’re perplexed. Then their shoulders drop, their face relaxes, and they will smile or even laugh out of complete disbelief. Watching the transformation in them in the days, weeks, and months that follow is breathtaking. They start to hold their head up, look you directly in the eyes, and genuinely smile from their heart. You can see it in their entire being. You can see that they’ve started to live from a place of knowing they’re loved.”

Discovering the love of God is a process of removing the lies you’ve believed. These lies often come through painful and traumatic experiences in your life. They confuse us and make us believe we will never, ever be capable of love or giving love properly. We feel broken and unworthy, tainted, and lost. We are here to tell you that you can be set free. Will it be easy? No. But worth it? Absolutely. You will have to go to the darkest and loneliest places in your life and be willing to walk through the dark valleys you’ve been running from. There are no shortcuts to healing. The only way to heal is to go right through the pain. And, most importantly, you need to have even but a sliver of hope that there might be a God. And that’s all it takes.

A love letter from God to you

 

My Child,

You may not know me, but I know everything about you. (Psalm 139:1)

I know when you sit down and when you rise. (Psalm 139:2)

I am familiar with all your ways. (Psalm 139:3)

Even the very hairs on your head are numbered. (Matthew 10:29-31)

For you were made in my image. (Genesis 1:27)

In me, you live and move and have your being. (Acts 17:28)

For you are my offspring. (Acts 17:28)

I knew you even before you were conceived. (Jeremiah 1:4-5)

I chose you when I planned creation. (Ephesians 1:11-12)

You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book. (Psalm 139:15-16)

I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live. (Acts 17:26)

You are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14)

I knit you together in your mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13)

And brought you forth on the day you were born. (Psalm 71:6)

I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me. (John 8:41-44)

I am not distant and angry but am the complete expression of love. (1 John 4:16)

And it is my desire to lavish my love on you. (1 John 3:1)

Simply because you are my child and I am your Father. (1 John 3:1)

I offer you more than your earthly father ever could. (Matthew 7:11)

For I am the perfect father. (Matthew 5:48)

Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand. (James 1:17)

For I am your provider and I meet all your needs. (Matthew 6:31-33)

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Because I love you with an everlasting love. (Jeremiah 31:3)

My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore. (Psalm 139:17-18)

And I rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

I will never stop doing good to you. (Jeremiah 32:40)

For you are my treasured possession. (Exodus 19:5)

I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:41)

And I want to show you great and marvellous things. (Jeremiah 33:3)

If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. (Deuteronomy 4:29)

Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

For it is I who gave you those desires. (Philippians 2:13)

I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)

For I am your greatest encourager. (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)

I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

When you are broken-hearted, I am close to you. (Psalm 34:18)

As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart. (Isaiah 40:11)

One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes. (Revelation 21:3-4)

And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth. (Revelation 21:3-4)

I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus.  (John 17:23)

For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed. (John 17:26)

He is the exact representation of my being. (Hebrews 1:3)

He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you. (Romans 8:31)

And to tell you that I am not counting your sins. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you. (1 John 4:10)

I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love. (Romans 8:31-32)

If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me. (1 John 2:23)

And nothing will ever separate you from my love again. (Romans 8:38-39)

Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen. (Luke 15:7)

I have always been Father, and will always be Father. (Ephesians 3:14-15)

My question is … Will you be my child? (John 1:12-13)

I am waiting for you. (Luke 15:11-32)

 

Love, Your Dad

Almighty God

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