The joy of sky-diving is reserved for those who are willing to jump out of planes.  The joy of speaking in front of others is reserved for those who risk being thought a fool.  A great sense of accomplishment is reserved for those who risk failure.  The satisfaction of deeply intimate relationships is reserved for those who give up self-protection and honestly open up to another.  The joy of being fully oneself is reserved for those who have surrendered to the hopelessness of receiving their validation from others.

So much of what we long for, a knowing in our hearts what we know in our heads, comes through surrendering our self-protection.   A heart-knowing of the love of God doesn't come through repeating to oneself, "God loves me" (the mind doesn't convince the heart of anything), but through giving up trying to find love anywhere else and abandoning oneself to the mercy of God, risking all.  Too often we try to make truth real in our hearts by using our rationality, and it never works.

There aren't many hearts, I believe, that are truly satisfied with superficiality, yet we choose it all the time.  To expose our deeper longings for connection, for impact, to be known, seems to put our hearts at risk; after all, it is soft hearts that touch others and make it possible to receive.  And let's not make the mistake of labeling a soft heart a weak heart.  Soft hearts can be very strong.  Strong hearts can be very soft.  Weak hearts often get hard.

There is something so beautiful about true vulnerability, a laying down of pretense and just being honest and open without demands or expectations of others.   It seems like holy ground - something to treasure.  "Here I am, as I am.  You are free to do with me as you choose; I am free to do with you as I choose, and I choose to accept both of us as we are."  That is the place of love and freedom and hope.  But it is not attained without a price.

What do you really believe about where more of the life you long for is at?  I can tell you, as you could tell me, that it is on the other side of something we naturally resist and that thing is the letting go of the desire to have control over our own lives.  Perhaps, deep down, we do not want to have control over our own lives.  Perhaps within us is the desire to step in the river to where we can no longer touch the bottom and let us take it to where it goes.  Perhaps what we really long for is in the River of Life and the primary issue for us is the letting go . . .

"Jesus, help to to be aware of the invitations to more fully surrender to my deepest desires, trusting that in them you are alive, dangerous, and good.  Amen"

I work with individuals, couples, and families to identify the ways of life and death in their lives and help uncover the motivation to choose that which leads to life, whether it be through counseling or spiritual direction.  - Sheldon Swartz, MA/LMFT