Finding the Love We Need
Happiness comes from within
As I grabbed my package off the porch, I glanced at the Amazon delivery van. “Warning: Contents may cause happiness,” was emblazoned on the side of the van. One of the tenets of our culture is that happiness comes from outside ourselves.
“Happiness does not come from without; it comes from within,” Helen Keller said. Looking to material possessions, people, places, and circumstances for happiness makes for an unhappy person. I know all too well.
In my early 20s, I moved nearly across the country to attend school. Looking for something that could take away the pain inside, I found myself very disappointed at the University of New Orleans. What I did find there are the memories I buried of being sexually abused as a child. The long, slow road of recovery brought me to the place I am at now where I can go to my Creator for the love I need.
Unconditional love is what we all need. Knowing we are loved regardless of our pasts, mistakes, failures, and flaws give us happiness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled,” Jesus said. (Matthew 5:4) What that means is that having a hunger and a thirst for God means you will be filled with His love. Just as you will not eat until you are hungry or drink until you are filled, you will not want more of God unless there is a need for His love.
Probably one of the most famous passages in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13, often dubbed the love chapter. While reading verses four through seven in the passage, substituting the word “love” for God helps us grasp the kind of love our Creator has for us. The verses tell us that love is patient, kind, and enduring. God is patient with us, infinitely kind, and loves us with enduring love. It is the kind of love that heals the wounds trauma caused.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)Come and find the love you need
Poetry is one of my earliest ways of writing. A few days ago I wrote a poem about daily taking in what we need spiritually. The love I write about at the end of the poem is divine. As you read my poem, picture Jesus telling you, “Come and find the love you need.”
Come
We are fragile ones
needing water,
needing food.
We are not camels
storing
what we need.
Take in today
what you need–
pure spiritual water.
Fill up
while you can,
when you can.
No pleasure
in a possession
brings joy,
brings life.
Come…
the love you need
is here.
