Hurting Hearts

A large portion of my life, I felt like I was always loving people more deeply than they loved me.

As I've grown older, I've learned not everyone can truly show how much they love the ones they love.

Some people have a harder time showing it.

I've also learned that sometimes people don't realize how much they love the ones they love until later in life when they look back and truly appreciate the people who have been there.

I think they always have loved those people but I don't think they realized how much they loved them or at least realized how much they needed to be shown that they were loved.

Love is always a tricky subject and one I'm still learning about every single day.

However, in getting rejected and shown that the love I had for some of my friends didn't match the love I had for them, my heart hurt and bled and grew a little gate around it.

Sometimes I still have to convince my heart to open it.

I think somewhere in the midst of realizing the different levels of love, I began to withdraw the love I had for them.  I loved them still the same but I stopped showing it as much. I think a part of me realized it would hurt to care or love them more than they loved me.

This is something I didn't really realize until recently but it's happened.

I realized it when I thought about writing one of those friends from awhile back and letting her know I missed her but then I hesitated because I didn't think she felt the same way.

But then I realized, what does that matter?

If I miss that friend, I should still tell her.

I should let her know I still love her and think about her because I do.

Even if she does not feel the same way back to me, that doesn't change the way I feel.

I still love her and I should not stop showing it just in case it's not reciprocated.

I think I was so used to being hurt by the lack of reciprocated love in different areas of my life, that I stopped being as willing to show my love in fear of the hurt.

That shouldn't matter though.

As I said, there are different ways people show love and some people won't appreciate it until later, but does that mean we withhold our love?

No.

We should love them more. 

More often than not, they need that.

Hearts may bend and twist in the process, but they won't actually break.

God's love is all I need and His love is boundless.

If God's love is in me, I should love in the same way.

And I'll let you in on a secret, Jesus was not and is certainly not always loved back but that does not stop Him from loving every single sinful and hateful human being on this earth.

Pour into me that love, Oh God.

May I only need yours and yours alone.