I was just reflecting on how many people talk about their “needs” in relationships.<\/p>\n
As I discern my own calling, I realize more and more that love is never about my<\/em> needs.\u00a0 I and we all have needs, but it is only Christ that could or does fills all the hopes of my heart.\u00a0 My life is about how that wholeness that Christ creates in me allows me to freely give the gift of myself to others however they need me and not need anything in return.<\/p>\n Dante, the author of the famous books Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, was madly, and for most of his life, in love with a woman who scolded him that he needed to have full love for God before love of her.\u00a0 One cannot love, enter a vocation, or marriage until one is free to live without it as well.\u00a0 Real loving is a gift of self that pours out from abundance, not need or obligation.\u00a0 If we do not get to love someone or something with this understanding (because circumstances prohibit it) it may hurt, but not more than just disappointment that you are not able to give yourself in that way.\u00a0 Paul tells us that love never seeks itself or its own interests.\u00a0 But to love in this way requires that we are totally rooted and free of ‘needing’ something from others – that all our identity is already fulfilled in following Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was just reflecting on how many people talk about their “needs” in relationships. As I discern my own calling, I realize more and more that love is never about my needs.\u00a0 I and we all have needs, but it is only Christ that could or does fills all the hopes of my heart.\u00a0 My life is about how that wholeness that Christ creates in me allows me to freely give the gift of myself to others however they need…<\/p>\n