Letting love come in...

Many years a go my heart suffered a loss. I was eight years old and my parent's divorced. The divorce to me, once it set in, was experienced as if my father had died. The family that I knew from birth until then ceased to exist from that moment on. My family, my security, my innocence of life, my protected heart all changed forever.

All people suffer loss in one way or another. My loss for the family I once knew was experienced uniquely to me and differently from even that of my sister. This introduction to heartache and loss was profound. Although my loss is rather insignificant compared to the loss some people have experience it was enough to take almost two decades to heal.

Healing has been a long journey because my reaction to my broken heart was an immediate abandonment to vulnerability and sensitivity. A callous formed around my heart that is only now beginning to let go and disappear. Through the life of my children and the love from my husband I find myself unable to escape the need and importance of loving without holding back.
When I look at the face of my son, Isaiah, I feel complete and intense love for him without even realizing it. I am surprised by that feeling in my heart and take note that more often than not I hide that side of me deep in my soul so that I am protected. The thought is that if I don't allow myself to fully grasp and feel the love I have for others the better off I will be if they were to one day be gone from my life. What has happened is the development of a life that is only half lived each day. A life that is missing the meaning of life and love and joy. It has taken seven years of marriage and three children to understand fully that loving them is not going to hurt, but not loving them fully is hurting...them and me.
As a mother to my children and a wife to my husband I cannot remain hidden deep inside my heart. I have to abandon all safe guards and love them deeply and purely. Through the letting go of my broken heart and the welcoming of a renewed heart I begin to understand the love, protection and will of God. Pain will happen again in my lifetime. I am not to be afraid. I am to be trusting, willing and thankful that through pain I can embrace the person I was created to be and the one that God see's me as.

I am letting love come in for I have nothing to fear.