"This love has taken its toll on me"

Why have I been awake since 5 AM? A dream. A dream so ridiculously realistic I (for the first time) didn't know where I was when I woke. I tried writing about it, but it didn't seem right. So I shall try again later.

Acceptance. I desperately, obviously, pathetically long for acceptance. I thought that was more of a particular need of mine, and the way I go about feeling wanted and needed is most certainly not common to everyone. However, I have been reading a book called "Soul Cravings" by Erwin Raphael McManus. It, essentially, looks at the three things that we as humans desire most, at the core of our beings, and attempt to find throughout life. It looks at our "quest for love, quest for destiny, and a quest for meaning". The part on love, at least, is brilliant.

I have skipped to "meaning" and it's not so great for now. But love. It's amazing how much of what has been writing in this section are ideas I have thought, expressed; or if not, resonated within me as something incredibly true. I have begun to understand just a little more of why I do the things I do.

I am an attention seeker. I know I am, however much I hate it. I don't ask for attention in entirely overt ways, but you can see it in the things I do. I don't want to ask for attention, as such, because that would be beside the point for me. Which point?

I have a desperate need to feel loved, wanted, needed. I hate how needy I am. But doesn't everyone need this, after all? Perhaps they don't feel it so consciously as I, but deep within us all, we desire others to value us. We need to be needed. It validates us. It makes our lives meaningful. Of course, there are other things that also give our lives meaning, and we can't live without meaning either; but relationships are a necessary part of humanity. You can deny it, but we are relational creatures.

We may turn our backs on this need, seek to isolate ourselves from everyone else, saying that we don't need anyone else. But why do we do this? Because we have been hurt by others. Which can only happen when we care about others, when we have relationships with others. When we feel the pain is too much to take, we can easily turn away. But turning away doesn't remove our need for others. We were made to be together, to interact, to love. There is an emptiness that comes from somewhere inside us, when there is something of love we are missing.

We abuse love, mistake love, throw away love, ignore and forget love; but at the end of the day, if we don't have love, what do we have?

"The great danger of giving up on love is that we begin to give in to hate. A place where there is no love is toxic to the soul.

When we love, we are moved toward forgiveness.When we allow hate to take over, we begin to live for vengeance."

A life lived in hatred is not my idea of life. It seems like a life where something essential has died, leaving a blackness, a deadness. Forgiveness is important to me. Not forgiveness in which we continue allow ourselves to be hurt. But forgiveness where we accept what another, or we, have done to ourselves or others, acknowledge the hurt, but let it go. It is one of the hardest things to accomplish, forgiving someone who has truly hurt us. And yet, one of the best things we can do in our lives. Sometimes forgiveness just doesn't come in one hit. And it's not always a one off act. You may need to forgive one act, one person, continually. Every minute, every hour, every day, you may wake up and have to forgive. Letting go of pain doesn't come about that easily. But in the end it is the best course to take.

Love is abused.

"Love isn't about volume. Love isn't about conquest. When we live like this [talking about "womanisers"], there's something deeper going on inside us that we're trying to ignore, even drown out. We are alone, disconnected, and deficient in love. Deep down inside we know we cannot fill the vacuum within our souls by consuming people. We are not only robbing others, we are pillaging our own souls.

Eventually it hits you: you cannot take love; you have to give it. Love is a gift that cannot be stolen".

We crave love, and I can see this in my own life, in the lives of people around me, in the writings of people I don't even know.

"How can you make sense of a person who moves from one relationship to another, making her body the object of another's pleasure of abuse, except to acknowledge the painful reality that human beings fear almost nothing more than being alone [On women in abusive relationships]?"

Love is an endless topic and I have much to say; the idea of such a mixture is somewhat terrifying, but it is 6.53 in the morning and I would like some sleep before church. So there will be a part two, I'm sure you're looking forward to it. ^_^ lol.