The Narrow Way

I used to think I understood love.

I thought it looked like endurance.

Like silence.

Like shrinking myself to keep the peace.

I thought love meant giving without boundaries, forgiving without process, staying even when it was breaking me.

But therapy is helping me unlearn that.

And Jesus, so gentle, so kind… is teaching me what real love actually looks like.

Love is not abuse with a smile.
Love is not abandonment with excuses.
Love is not silence when the truth is needed.
And love is not measured by how much pain you can tolerate.

You see, I grew up sometimes hearing about a God who is love.

But for a long time, I couldn’t reconcile that with the “love” I experienced from others.

The kind of love that manipulated, hurt, or disappeared when I needed it most.

That’s not God’s love.

Therapy is helping me see what Jesus has been saying all along:
Real love doesn’t leave you guessing.
It doesn’t make you earn your worth.
It doesn’t ask you to prove your pain or explain your trauma away.

The love of Jesus is the kind that stays.

That sees.

That heals.

He sat with the woman at the well, not to shame her, but to restore her.
He touched the leper, not to expose his wounds, but to heal them.
He wept with Mary and Martha, not because He was helpless, but because He felt what they felt.

That’s love.
And that’s what I’m learning to receive.

Therapy is teaching me how deeply I’ve craved what only Jesus can give.

A love that says, “You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to be perfect. Just come.”

It’s also teaching me that Jesus doesn’t only offer this love, He models it. And if I’m made in His image, then I can learn to love myself like that too.

With grace.

With gentleness.

With patience.

I’m learning that I don’t have to earn rest.
I don’t have to explain my worth.
I don’t have to apologize for needing care.

Because Jesus never makes me apologize for being human.

He meets me there.

And maybe the most powerful thing therapy is teaching me right now is this:
I can let love in again.
Not the kind that costs me my peace.
Not the kind that demands my silence.
But the kind that reflects heaven. The kind rooted in truth. The kind that looks like Jesus.

So I’m healing.

I’m receiving.

I’m unlearning the lies that told me I had to settle for whatever love people were willing to give.

Jesus is teaching me a new definition.

A higher standard.

A deeper truth.

And this time, I’m choosing the kind of love that sets captives free, starting with me.