BUT PEOPLE CAN ONLY GIVE WHAT THEY HAVE

 

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

An excited business man giving what he has / Photo Courtesy / Pavel Danilyuk

Love is Transformative

Love in its purest form is sweet. In fact, love is not just sweet. It heals too. It comforts. Calm storms. And transform people. Love is care. Love is security.  If you love someone. You want the best for that person. Love is sacrifice. It can lay down its life for the sake of the other. Love is a sweet little fruit with significant milestones. It is invisible but it changes people. It is intangible but is felt strongly by real people. Real people in the real world are willing to cover miles to experience love. Love in its purest nature is transformative. Love changes cold hearts. Hearts, which have been dry for a long time. This small fruit has power to transform those wounded hearts. With all these glowing positive capabilities of love. You can now understand why some people become suicidal when they lose love. Because true love, which comes from undefiled place is precious.

But let us be honest. This type of pure, sweet love is rare. Human intelligence has corrupted love. It has drifted it from its original meaning to something else. Something that is popular, corrupt, and capable of being transformed into a commodity. As a result, we have a lot of people who walk around thinking they got love. When in the real sense, they have poison. They have or experienced the corrupted version of love. This is perhaps, why we have so many cold hearts out there. Modern society has twisted love by tricking people into programs, which promise them love in 90 days. Total strangers are brought together to find love and get married. All in 90 days. But really, what kind of love do these contestants end up with? Love in its purest form or love based on convenience?

Anyway, let’s leave these programs alone. Although, I tend to think that the idea of finding love in 90 days was someone’s research project. A research question such as, ‘can total strangers fall in love in 90 days and enjoy a blissful marriage?’ sounds like a nice research project. But we have learned the hard way. Haven’t we? So bring back your mind here and let’s try and figure out why love fails in 90 days. One of the obvious answers could be, counterfeit does not last. All things that have been defined as love but are not love cannot produce love. Love according to human intelligence has an expiry date. And all those who pretend to have love but do not have an oasis of love in them also get tired. Sustaining a lie is hard work. You got to have many small lies to back up the main lie. People just get tired of such type of love.

Fakeness Does Not Last

A good-hearted friend giving only what he has / Photo / Helena Lopes

There is no security in fakeness. There is no joy in counterfeit. There is no warmth in packaged love. To experience transformation and the sweetness described above, love must be what it was designed to be from the beginning. Kind and sacrificial. It is only when love is unsullied that is capable of changing people. Love can only reach the other end when it is pure. When it is pure, it is capable of healing. That is the love I am talking about today, not the one you earn in 90 days. And when you don’t have this type of love. You cannot give love. If your heart is contaminated. It cannot give pure love. Contaminated hearts contaminate other people. Wounded hearts wound other people. Broken hearts break other people because you can only give what you have. If there is love in your heart, that is what you are capable of giving.

But if your heart is contaminated in any way with the various things taking place in life. Don’t say you have love. You don’t have love. You have contamination. If you fall in love in this state. Your chances of contaminating the other person with whatever contaminated you is very high. So be careful. You examine your heart first before you fall in love. If you are a piece of work. You work on yourself first before getting involved with other people. When you are a piece of work, that is not the best time to practice out this virtue of charity. When you are a piece of work. You focus on your own healing. This is the best thing you can do to yourself. Fix the brokenness in you. Heal the wounds in your heart. When you are a piece of work. Don’t fall in love because you might not find ample time in a relationship to fix the contaminated areas of your life.

You cannot rely on the love of the other person only to heal you. If healing must happen. It must flow from both sides. Your pure love and the pure love of the other person create security. In this mutual partnership. Healing might take place. But not on a dry land. Love is capable of so many good things. However, true love must be cultivated. Undefiled love must be desired. You must work hard to earn it, especially in modern life where we have more brokenness than wholeness. I am not sure who is turning us numb. But for sure, there is hopelessness in modern society. People are suffering. People who thought were in love with other people who said they loved them are now broken. They are broken because the other people who thought they got love, ended up giving brokenness. So don’t be quick. Take your time and learn about the state of your heart.

Know What You Are Not

A couple experiencing transformative love / Photo / Manish ART

Life has a tendency of turning people into what they are not. Things happen and people end up with bitterness. Don’t suppress bitterness or the unjust things that life has done to you. Acknowledge them. Acknowledge the pain. Acknowledge that you have wounds. This is a subtle best step. It is a path of honesty. And honesty heals. When you are able to honestly verbalize everything you are feeling inside, and even get to the point of, naming things that make you toxic. You are headed in the right direction. The more you acknowledge hidden things in you that sum up into brokenness. The more you untangle yourself from various bondages. The freer you become. When you live unburdened. You are capable of progress. You are capable of learning new things. And when you don’t have anything else bothering you. You can learn to differentiate between potent pure love and artificial love.

Love in its original form is non-violent. It does not have any form of pride or hidden agendas. Love in its purest form protects. It does not harm or attack. Instead, it works for the good of other people. That is the kind of love, I wish you end up with. Love that honors. Love that respects. Loves that makes the other people better. Don’t end up with lust. Don’t end up with more than what you need. Don’t end up entitled. Don’t be toxic. Don’t end up controlling. End up loved. End up joyful. End up healed.

Examine your heart and question its intentions. If those intentions are not pure. Don’t get involved with other people. Because if you must give something. You must have something in the first place. If you determine that you have contamination. Don’t infiltrate other people. Instead, sit yourself down and think about this contamination. Where did it come from? How did it end up influencing you this much? Why are you not pure? Ask these questions. And where possible. Seek help if you cannot answer these questions by yourself. Life can be a piece of work. But you don’t have to end up as a piece of work. You got more options than you think. Just start with the first step. The step of honesty. That is how you detect a toxic heart.

 

P.S. This author will examine her heart too.