How To Love When Your Afraid Of Love | Celebrating My 14th Wedding Anniversary
TRIGGER WARNING!!
This post contains past trauma and challenges I’ve faced. Read with caution of your heart and mind.
Hello, my beloved friend! I hope your day is fantastic and if it’s not I pray for God’s perfect love to cast out any fear you have in the name of Jesus.
Welcome! Today’s post is very romantic as it is my 14th wedding anniversary with my King under my King! But romance and love and trust were not something I knew how to allow into my life. In fact, I was terrified of loving and being loved.
Because I was terrified of being abandoned.
Photography by: Paris Photographer | BRUNO B.
It seemed like I wasn’t getting to feel loved, because It just was not meant for me, but what I learned through reading my bible was that we are all deserving of love and connection because Jesus has paid the ultimate price for you and me to enjoy love and connection through HIS LOVE. And when you accept him in your heart as your Lord and Saviour, you are trading your old self full of shame and fear and transplanting to a NEW you that belongs to Jesus forever and when you belong to Jesus and to yourself, you belong anywhere!
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
I didn’t know that I had an enemy of love inside of ME that I had to overcome with God’s word in order to allow love to flow out of me and into me. I kept feeling like the problem was outside of me, and I finally realized that it was ME! But the power to change was ALSO WITHIN ME to change WITH the power of God’s Holy Spirit and that made me very hopeful for my future! And let me tell you from a young lady who had a “smile” on her face but deep darkness in her soul; full of despair and hopelessness. Hope IS EVERYTHING!
I found hope for my mental health but I had to do the work to discover what had been holding me back from trusting in love. I had to accept my broken past and surrender to the truth, let God heal my heart, forgive and move FORWARD!
“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31
I had a lie in my soul and mind, that I was too broken to be loved for the real person I was inside. The enemy twisted my identity by robbing me of my innocence at a very young age. Six to be exact and since I was raped and continued to be molested for a long while by people who were meant to take care of me, I felt dishonorable, disgusting, like a piece of trash, and filled with so much shame.
Who would love someone like me?
I come from a very broken past, I’ve endured complex trauma even beyond being sexually abused so it’s a lot on one person to cope with all the pain and aftermath of trauma. There have been many many many moments that have come to steal the joy right out of me. I lost my sense of loving and trusting anyone. I didn’t know how to love and let love in. I had built walls around my heart so nobody hurt it. But guess what? Those walls hurt ME more than I could’ve imagined. Yes, they gave me a false sense of control which crumbled with any turbulence. They prevented me from trusting anyone even myself. They locked me into self-harm and toxic patterns. They isolated me to the point that I didn’t have hope for living. So looking back those walls were really a jail and I am so grateful Jesus broke me FREE!
They prevented me from really getting close to anyone emotionally, but if things got painful (which they still did!) I STILL felt rejection, abandonment, and sadness when others betrayed or disappointed me and relationships didn’t end up working out. So I was miserable 100% of the time because I chose to put up a guard, instead of trusting that God would help me when I faced the trials that naturally come with being in a relationship and being alive! No one is perfect and we all have the ability to disappoint one another!
It was something I didn’t know before. We are all broken and in need of Jesus, so naturally, things will become painful, disappointing, and challenging. Relationships are tough, but so is being isolated emotionally with the fear of abandonment or rejection and not allowing love to be a part of your life. I believe that having the courage to really LOVE and let LOVE IN and be in healthy relationships is so worth it! Being in a healthy relationship has more fruit in the end, even through the painful moments.
In our fourteen years of marriage, Doug and I have had our HUGE share of ups and downs (when we are at a low point it always feels like we’ve had more downs than ups) haha! But I have learned so much through the whole journey. It’s been the moments of darkest parts in our relationship that we’ve surrendered our marriage to Jesus and asked him for his strength for us in the relationship. Every. Single. Time. we’ve been in a really hard place, we both have trusted God and the PROCESS of challenges in our marriage. It’s been the best seeing us become closer and more intimate with Christ and ourselves and each other. If we can give hope to anyone out there hurting right now. I pray that this would be your sign to not give up! Things get hard. Trust the process. God is so wise, pray for wisdom to know who you are in him and to be capable to love your spouse in a way that honors The Lord. Serve your partner every single day and don’t expect them to be God for you.
Not one of our days has been free of some kind of resistance. But we are both resilient and fill strongly about fighting TOGETHER for our marriage and being guarded from the enemy when he comes to try to steal and destroy our joy and hope.
What my emotional walls really did was prevent me from actually enjoying love while I had it and gave me a false illusion that I wouldn’t get hurt if things didn’t work out, so when I did get hurt, I felt even more depressed and jaded. Still full of shame and feeling terrified to be known. As I have let Jesus heal my emotional wounds tied to my fear of abandonment and rejection, I’ve come to shed the shame, fear, and distrust that plagued all my relationships. If Jesus can do that for me so he can do that for you if you’re in a place that hurts to allow yourself to be vulnerable. No one understands the deep hurt of feeling fear of abandonment more than Jesus. So trust that where you hurt God can comfort and heal and use what was meant to harm you for your good.
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Genesis 50:20
I don’t know how God is able to do all that but he has done it in my own life and I know he is a God of abundance and miracles. If you’re breathing today, there’s still a purpose for your life and a part of that purpose is that you’d be loved and find connection first with Jesus, then with yourself, and then hopefully with someone who is healthy like you to be emotionally available.
Jesus has taken my shame and fear of love. It hasn’t been an easy journey I will say but it is no longer a part of my identity. It does try to rear it’s ugly head from time to time, but the love of Jesus always brings me back home to a safe place where I can trust in God above it all and trust that God is going to lead me in every step EVEN if abandonment or rejection become a part of my story. I am no one to tell you how to live your life. I’m also trying to figure that out for myself, but I can share my pain with you in hopes that it will help you feel normal if you to feel the same way.
I pray that if you are struggling with feeling afraid of love that Jesus would become your prince of peace. That you’d allow yourself to see the beauty in a relationship that is deep with the perfect gentleman. Jesus.
I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day. Know that trusting again after deep hurt is a journey and it takes a while, be compassionate and grace-filled with your own story and hurts. Just like when we have physical pain, accidents, and wounds that are on the outside of us, we can see that we are hurt and still need to take it easy. Well, your heart, mind, and soul are the same, we can’t see the wounds, but they are there. If you have a wound give yourself time and Jesus. You will heal in his love. Thank you for celebrating with us today! We love and believe in you!
