Loving Vulnerably

Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is extremely hard. Displaying your vulnerability can potentially mean opening yourself up to the risk of criticism, ridicule and rejection.

Eek! This is a hard one.

When someone hurts us, our first instinct is to protect ourselves and prevent it from happening again. The pain from hurt and rejection can cut like a knife and cause us to recoil and hide our true self away.

We say to ourselves,

“I’m not going to let myself get hurt like that again!”

And so we build yet another wall, a barrier between us and them, that absolutely no one can get through. The more barriers we put up, the harder our hearts become and we are filled with unforgiveness, resentment and bitterness.

Before we know it, our form of defence has actually become our poison.

Hurt quickly turns to hate and spreads like wildfire, taking every beautiful thing with it. The weight of unforgiveness and the burden of holding a grudge is enough to crush a once gentle and kindhearted spirit and change a person forever.

Listen

“Don’t let them in, don’t let them know. Hold it all tightly, don’t let it show. Hide every fear away. The world on your shoulders bearing you down, don’t let them see the tears of a clown. Hide every hurt away.”

These lyrics were taken from a song I wrote called ‘He has freed us’.

Click here to listen on YouTube

I wrote this song during my healing process from acute anxiety. For a long time, I hid my illness away from people, afraid to appear vulnerable. I had so much baggage that I was refusing to let go of and it was making me ill.

Holding on to hurt, pride and unforgiveness was the root cause of my anxiety and God had to do a major work in my heart in order for me to be completely set free and healed. Letting my guard down, becoming vulnerable and allowing God to heal my heart was the first step in the process.

Loving vulnerably means that, although we open ourselves up to rejection and ridicule time and time again, we are able to recover from hurt and eradicate the feelings of offence very quickly. With God’s help we are able to love and forgive those who hurt us.

We love vulnerably so that our hearts stay clean, pure and full of love and for our lives to remain filled with the joy and peace of Jesus Christ.

Love and blessings,

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