It's been a while since my last blog. I have been going through a lot spiritually and have been in a process of healing and I am finally on the other side of healing and freedom.
I have been thinking a lot about love. Not love in the romantic since, eros (in the Greek), but true love, godly love, agape (in the Greek) love, which is an unconditional love. This, I believe is the highest and most perfect form of love. But, how many of you can say that outside of your family members you have friends and significant others who truly love you, the real you, not the romanticized or ideal you, but the hot, jacked up, mess you? The truth is that most of us are messy lumps of clay that are being formed and molded as we learn, grow and develop.
An acronym for Y-O-U came to me this weekend. We use acronyms a lot in Celebrate Recovery. Here is the acronym:
Yoke
Overcoming
issUes
Often, we have at least one yoke that we struggle with whether it's as small as nail biting, nagging, or as big as relationship, food, sex or drug addictions. A yoke is wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull. Once it is attached the animals cannot move freely and they have to go in the same direction in order to move. In other words the animal's freedom is taken until the yoke is removed.
In Hebrew the word yoke is motah and it is used to denote severe bondage or affliction. Could we and do we love others through their yokes? You see many of us are overcoming something if we are not in denial about it. This means that we are working through our yokes. This may be a continual process for many of us. Often when we have overcome one yoke then the Holy Spirit reveals to us another issue that we have to work through. We will never have arrived to the place of perfection until the Perfect One returns. Jesus knew that in this fallen world that we would have issues and yokes and that is why He said for us to take on His yoke and that it was easy and light because any other yoke is a burden and is often spiritually oppression.
We need agape love to have deep, meaningful, lasting relationships. Agape love is based on choices and behaviors rather than emotions and feelings. Eros love is based on emotions and feelings and emotions and feelings are fickle. They change from moment to moment. One who loves with an agape love is able to love someone past the yokes and/or issues. They are able to love someone while they are overcoming. They can understand that there is good and bad in everyone. They can accept that people have strengths and weaknesses. We can be transparent with people who love us with an agape love without fear.
I personally choose to be as transparent as possible with everyone I come in contact with. I no longer put on a mask when I meet people. Before recovery I wore a mask all the time. Now I want them to know the real me early in the relationship whether it a friendship or something more. I want them to know my weakness, my faults, my issues, and my yoke(s) because I want them to get the real Kim, not a representative of Kim, but Kim. I am learning that some people will be able to handle the real me and some won't. I am truly thankful for those in my life who love me past my issues, call me on my stuff, forgive me when I admit my wrongs, and celebrate with me when I overcome.
