Healing Love
I work in healthcare, so pain and comfort are always on my mind when visiting my patients, and our goal is to alleviate their pain as much as possible. When we look around us or watch the news, we see so many hurting and broken people. Meanwhile, most or us are struggling with our own pain and brokenness. Everyone handles their brokenness differently. Sometimes we strike out at others from our internal pain, fear and anger. Sometimes we develop a greater empathy for the pain of others because of our own experiences and emotions. The holiday season is difficult for many people including those of us who have lost loved ones or who have traumatic memories connected with this time of year. Let’s talk about how to be sensitive to the experiences of others and do what we can to alleviate their pain.
The main theme of Awakened2Love is the importance of loving ourselves and others unconditionally and completely. I believe that kind of love can be a healing balm to hurting people and broken relationships. In his poem Family Dollar, Willie Carver writes: “We are not here to be perfect for each other. We are here to heal what was broken by others.” I love that! Don’t you?
An important way to show love and respect to others is to listen to them with the intent to better understand them and to respond to them with acceptance. We have a tendency to want to judge people, fix people, or lecture at them from our great wisdom. But this is not conducive to loving relationships between equals. We can humbly listen and stifle those urges to share our solutions and vast experience. We can view each person as the leading expert of their own life instead of thinking we know more about who they are or what they need.
I saw a hand-written sign by the road this week that said “2 Chronicles 7:14”. That verse reads: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” I don’t know who put that sign in the ground or what their motivations were. It’s possible that they are one of the people attempting to legislate “morality” and control the behavior and choices of American citizens in an effort to earn God’s blessing on our country. Or maybe they are longing for a more loving and humble society that would be more in line with God’s will for us and would bring healing to people and to our country and our world. That is my hope this Christmas. Let’s work on healing the hurt in ourselves and others with unconditional love and acceptance.
Whether you identify as a Christian or not, please listen to this song by my husband Tracy: They Should Know.