The need to be loved.

This theme has been bang on my radar of late.

As I prepare a teaching on the call to be loved by God, I notice more and more that at the root of most of our internal struggles is a lack of love, or even a perceived lack of love.

What I mean is that the need to be loved in words and actions is the most fundamental human need in existence.

This is true for every single one of us irrespective of gender, age, faith, class, education, bank balance or anything else.

It is our experience of being loved that shapes our belief about whether we are loveable.  And our belief about our love-ability affects how much of ourselves we offer to others and to life itself.

As children we watch the adults around us to learn about love. We notice whether our family tells us in words that they love us or whether they demonstrate their love with physical affection; hugs or kisses.

We watch and we internalise messages about what this says about our own love-ability.

We do not realise as children that the way in which our parents or others love us is usually a reflection of how they have been loved as opposed to a reflection of our love-ability.

All too often I hear of families where children as young as six are told they are too old for hugs and kisses. As if the need for love is not legitimate or life-long.

But the truth is that we all need to be loved throughout our lives. 

We need to know that there are people around us who know us well enough to see our flaws but who love us regardless. We need people who don’t ask us to pretend or hide parts of ourselves but who see and love us as we are.

This need to be loved is a basic but critical human need.

When it is not met well enough, it can leave us unable or unwilling to offer our most authentic selves or gifts to the world around us.

This is because it is love that gives us the agency to take the necessary risks to become who we are capable of becoming.

It is love that stops us from settling for or becoming stuck within a life that does not reflect our true nature or potential.

It is love that enables us to live fully.

None amongst us can choose the family we are born in to or whether they have worked through their generational issues enough to be able to love in a healthy way with words and actions.

But, every single one of us whether our experience of love through family or the world at large, has been good, bad or indifferent is being called to be loved by the God who loves us all with a love like no other. He is the only perfect parent in existence and He seeks to love all of us; His children.

His is a love that see’s and knows every thought, feeling or action we have ever had or ever will yet He continues to love us in to the best versions of ourselves.

His love propels us in to pursuing all that we are able to be and to give to this thing called life.

It is a love that sets us free.

Who doesn’t yearn for that kind of love.