Love Is Not The Result Of Healing, It Is Healing

​We are all two people.

We are who we are, and we are who we are pretending to be. Most of the pretending exists to hide the parts of us we fear others will find unlovable - which, if we’re honest, are often the parts we don’t yet love ourselves.

Some of us pretend less than others. Usually because, somewhere along the way, we encountered a person who felt safe enough for us to bring into our hidden rooms - the rooms where we keep our wounds, our struggles, our oldest secrets. And instead of turning away, they looked back at us with love.

Hiding is hurting. Hiding is slow destruction. But when someone walks into the place you’ve spent a lifetime avoiding and leaves it more accepting of you than you have ever been of yourself - that is healing.

Is there any greater love than the kind that says, I see you - all of you - and I count it as a gift? The very parts you’ve carried like a curse suddenly become the parts someone else cherishes.

Love.

I think of Christ. The Christ who came not simply to comfort us but to heal us. And His healing begins with a simple invitation: Bring me everything you want to hide. Bring me your burdens. Bring me your shame. Bring me the parts of you you’ve never trusted anyone with.

Give it to me.

All of it.

So that you may walk away loved - deeply loved - not in spite of what you shared, but because I love the one who shared it.

It’s hard to love the hider. Hard to love the hidden. They do not know who they are, and neither does anyone else.

Which is why love is as much about inviting as it is about showing up.

Inviting someone to speak.

To reveal.

To be honest.

To be known.

To be themselves.

Love is not what happens after healing.

Love is healing.