THERE IS LOVE

These are some thoughts that grew out of reading an "Upper Room" devotional at www.upperroom.org.

St. Paul wrote,  

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." [1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (NRSV ]

1 Corinthians 13 was read at out parents' wedding ceremony, and I often used it when I was presiding at weddings. If you are feeling low, you can substitute "I" and first person pronouns or if you are praying for someone, you can put their name and personal pronouns -- e.g. 

"Michelle is patient and kind, she is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. She does not insist on her own way; she is not irritable or resentful; she does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. She bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 
  
We are love, created by the Fullness of Love. The more we abide in that Love, the more we take on its characteristics and live and become more loving and more able to receive and share Love. 

I think that when St. Paul wrote what we have come to know as ! Corinthians 13, he was succinctly describing God in Christ as he had come to know and live in Him.

Sometimes when people believe the lies they have been told or live in order to survive the wounds from childhood -- neglect, abuse, abandonment, conditional "love" that is not Love . . . a grown-up who has been a child like that lives out of a manufactured false self and keeps doing the same things, saying the same things, projecting the same kind of false self that helped her or him to survive childhood.   

This is beautifully portrayed and discussed by a Swiss psychoanalyst, Alice Miller, in a series of books beginning with one called "The Drama of the Gifted Child."

The Drama of the Gifted Child

When Jesus says we need to die to our self and be born again, I believe this means that we have to cut off and no longer live out of the false self we manufactured without knowing it, in order to survive.

We regain our true selves, our true personalities when we are able to find inner healing.  The problems and woundedness that lead to addictions, symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), suicide, depression and all sorts of other anti-social ideations and behavior cannot be resolved in the present,  The causes are kept alive in our psyches and affect us spiritually, physically and emotionally because these are intertwined.

Inner Healing Prayer Circles are places where people can safely talk about the wounds of the past.  When we are able to trust people to share with us, pray eith us, help us to carry and then to put down our burdens, we can find release and healing.

The masks and costumes we have learned to put on to get our needs met are no longer necessary.  We can be free to be our true selves.

In the early days of the Charismatic Renewal Movement in the last century, President Jimmy Carter's sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton wrote some books about inner healing.

Ruth Carter Stapleton's Books

We are created by the Spirit of Love, or whatever you want to call the Divine Creator.  Our spirits exist in this eternal home and we come to be incarnate on this Earth . . . from infinity to this finite place.  One of the Tasks of this sojourn is so that our spirits and our incarnated bodies and experiences of life on Earth train up our souls to live eternally in that Fullness of Love.

As we find inner healing, we are able through the Healer to allow our true selves to be revealed.  We give up fear and anger, we find liberty from oppression and imprisonment, we embrace love and light.  We are able to truly live as we were intended to live -- be who we are created to be, in partnership with the Divine.

And there is Love for us.  There are people given to us, experiences made available to us . . . joys, sorrows, laughter, and tears.

Sometimes in order to survive we have had to freeze out memories and emotions.  But in this emotionally frozen state, we are not only cut off from pain, we are cut off from every other emotion as well.  Francis MacNutt writes about this in his books including one specifically about inner healing.

Francis MacNutt's "Inner Healing"

So today I would like to encourage you if you are feeling lost or helpless; if you are self-medicating; if you keep doing things that alienate friends and family members; if you just don't feel like your self.  

There is hope.  

There is help.  

There is new life.

You can begin it with a thought or a prayer.  Look inside your heart and you will find you are not alone.  

You will find that the Love that created you is more powerful than anyone or anything that has wounded you or keeps you in an emotional prison.

You will be led to people who can continue to help you.

The powers that have harassed you and kept you from being who you have been created to be will yield.

You are beloved.  Completely.  Absolutely.  Eternally.

Please just open your heart and ask for help.  Do it now.  Please.

THERE IS LOVE


Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com