Where love begins

I first saw Teagan, my dog, from a distance.  She was living on a hill of dirt, chained to a makeshift dog house.  I was drawn to her circumstance and walked over to meet her.  I sat down next to her and she crawled into my lap, shaking and grateful.  We were bonded in that moment.

How did that instant connection and sense of love and belonging happen?  Teagan, who had been denied her freedom, had no reason to trust any person.  I actually was in a similar state. I was alone and experience had taught me to be cautious about connection and needing someone.   And yet, there it was; that sense that I needed her and she needed me.  And together we could fill that need.

As hard as we try to ignore it or deny it, we are created with a deep need to be loved and to love.  Love begins in the created heart.  It is a core part of us.  We are created with a need to connect to love and with the capacity to give love. The design was that our families would be the place of experiencing that accepting and nourishing love.  That doesn't always happen.

Families riddled with sex abuse distort and deny authentic love.  The victim is left to learn how to trust love, how to recognize authentic love and how to express it.  A tough assignment for sure!

Hope can be found in the fact that within your created heart and spirit is an imparted knowledge of what authentic love is.  When you do the challenging work of recognizing the distortion of love you experienced; acknowledge the pain of it and exchange the deceitful representation for the authentic reality, you can live out of where love begins.