“Many elements combine to promote real change…The more deeply we enter our disappointment, the more thoroughly we can face our sin…
Feeling disappointment has another advantage. It frees us to genuinely appreciate our parents, spouses, children, and friends for all the kindness they’ve extended to us and the qualities they display…
When we look clearly at how another has failed us, it can free us of our demand that they love us well…
We have all been sinned against. We all sin. You have failed to love me as you should and I have failed to love you. Your failure to love me is painful, sometimes profoundly disappointing. But the Lord’s love for me is perfect. Although His love does not remove the sting of your failure, it gives me all I need to stand as a whole person, capable of loving you regardless of the threat of your further failure.
And that is my responsibility, to love you. My love for you (not yours for me) determines in large measure my experience of joy and my sense of intactness. I can love because I am loved perfectly and fully by God.
And my love for you matters. It can draw you to Christ, it gives my life power and value in His plan, it brings glory to God. And, as I falteringly learn to love you without self-protection, I edge toward the longed-for reality of abundant living.
The struggle to live in disappointing relationships will continue until Heaven. But the good news of the gospel is that there’s a solution to the real problem. The sin of self-protection can be dealt with now…”
Inside Out, pg. 186-188
More soon. This stuff is too rich.