Live from the abundant place that you are loved, and you won’t find yourself begging others for scraps of love.
Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely
Lysa TerKeurst
Category: LOVE
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And my search for love and acceptance outside of God’s presence then leads to dangerous places. The world’s plan always leads us to places of pain, loneliness, and a deep ache for belonging that seems just out of reach. Because the need to be loved and accepted runs so deep, we find ourselves doing things we never thought possible just to try to satisfy those desires. What starts off as a seemingly small compromise can easily become a complete contradiction to the people we long to be.
Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely
Lysa TerKeurst -
And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved? but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship’s bright boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love from the fog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and sunk me in a gulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered over me, and I knew it not. I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee, and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and further from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots of sorrows, with a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.
Confessions
St. Augustine -
Without the love of God within you, you cannot repent. Without the love of God, you would not leave sin because of purity of heart, but merely as the outer proceedings of a formal reconciliation with God, because of fear of His anger and punishment. A person who fears God’s punishment and fears that sin might lead him into hell becomes religious. He calls this piety, that is, the fear of God and His anger. With this fear, he avoids practicing sin, but the sin does not stay away from his heart.
The heart continues swinging to the right and to the left, and will not settle except with love toward God.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity -
There is a well known saying: “He who lives only for himself never lived.” Then in the service, you must get out of your shell to meet others. You must get out of the “I” sphere to spread your love among all. You feel that your message in life is to do good to all those whom God send in your way. The more you gain experience in life and broadness in the heart, the circle of your service will get bigger. It would not be limited to your house and your family, and not only to your relatives, neighbours, friends and colleagues, but it will reach to a range that is wider and wider…
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Spiritual Means -
and I repeat again St. Augustine’s words: “Love and do as you will.” Don’t worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don’t interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, “What course of action should I pursue?” Concentrate on loving instead. And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace.
Letters from the Desert
by Carlo Carretto -
Many times when we are approached by someone at times when we are fatigued or preoccupied, we are annoyed and discomforted and say, ‘I have no time for you now, come back later, wait for a while’. But Christ the Lord, even on the cross, did not say such phrases. In spite of His pains, He gave due attention to the thief, and answered his request to gladden his heart. He showed us that even on the cross, we can still serve others.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Father, Forgive Them
SO GOOD QUOTES 