Everyone Wants to Be Loved; Everyone Needs Hope

Everyone wants to be loved. Everyone. No higher proof of a creator, a god, our God, exist. Because we were created with such ultimate love, we yearn for the same.  Everyone needs hope. Moving forward with neither seems impossible.

Love 

A few months ago, I sat in a Sunday School class and listened as others discussed the day’s lesson. I don’t recall the topic, but when I chose to interject my thoughts, the first words I uttered were, “Everyone wants to be loved.” I believe this from the depths of my soul. The problem is many times we levy self-imposed restrictions on how we give and receive love.

We receive God’s love when it’s on our terms, especially when it’s convenient and meets our needs. When our selfish desires take precedence, we ignore His gift as if it had never existed. Thankfully for us, God’s love is unconditional; it remains intact in spite of our poor choices.

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When it comes to how we give and receive love, an asterisk or warning label is often necessary. Sure, we all want to be loved, but mainly by those that we love or want to love. There have been times in my life when others loved me or tried to, and I rejected their gift. For that, I am sorry. We can’t be expected to show the same level of love for everyone. For various reasons, we may not feel or experience the same depth of emotion. Still, we can appreciate the effort others make.

 I was fortunate to have two parents who loved and love me unconditionally, just as I love my two children. It’s a love where no prerequisites exist; only the knowledge that no matter what, love will prevail.

Barriers to Love

My challenge with love has always been tied to romantic and personal relationships. I have no doubt God intended us to experience such love. But why is it so difficult to find? I wish I had the answer.

In the decades I have been gifted with life, and outside of my inner family circle, I have never allowed myself to experience the blessings of true love. Why I’m not sure. I believe the reasons are complicated; it may be above my pay grade to understand. I hope and pray these “reasons” will reveal themselves one day.

Too Much Pain For Love

I have a friend who recently told me they could not and would not share their heart with anyone again. Their reasons are tied to the one emotion that can overwhelm love; pain. They feel they have experienced so much pain and hurt that giving their entire heart to someone is too great a risk. I wish I had the gift – the magic – to change their mind, yet I have not walked in their shoes. I know they have so much love to give. I have witnessed them show unbiased love to others in a non-romantic way many times. 

I also believe they would be blessed immensely by allowing others to love them romantically, and to reciprocate that same emotion when the time is right. I pray I see their change of heart one day. It’s also a lesson I need to regularly remind myself. 

One of the challenges of loving someone is when others we love establish parameters or guidelines for how and when we can love others. How do we choose? It’s an incredibly difficult question to answer. Maybe the better question is, why must we choose at all? Why can’t we have both?

Hope

Everyone needs hope. As much as my desire to be loved, my desire for hope is even stronger.

Recently a personal situation temporarily loosened my grip on hope. It’s a horrible feeling and one I hope not to experience again. A lesson I learned one more time was not to allow my hope to be tied to another’s love, at whatever level such love existed in the first place.

For me, it’s hope gets me out of bed every morning. Hope keeps me motivated in the middle of the afternoon. Hope gives me a reason to believe my best day is tomorrow. Hope allows me to sleep well at night. 

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Hope helps me believe great things will happen. Maybe it’s the day when my children tell me they have overcome an obstacle. Perhaps it’s the day I write my best sentence. Maybe it’s when I meet someone that will positively impact my life, or possibly the day I or someone I care about finds love and decides to share their heart with another.

I want to locate the crossroads where my desire for love and need for hope intersect. I want my friend to find the place where their heart can open itself without the fear that pain will ultimately invade its narrow boundary. Both desires deserve to be recognized before we perish.

Faith Binds Everything Together

No one can adequately discuss love and hope without mentioning faith. Ultimately it’s faith that helps me possess both. 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Faith is the common thread for love and hope. For it’s faith in God that allows us to work through the pain to love again – to fully give our heart to another. For it’s faith that helps me grab on to hope. Everyone wants to be loved; everyone needs hope. Faith binds them together.