Will you allow me to love you again?

"Will you allow me to love you again?" That's what God asked me last weekend.  Actually, God has been loving me all these times but I was too busy, too hurt to notice.  All the while, I thought he owed me. All the while I thought he should make up to me for something he promised but failed to keep.  It was only when we had this serious talk after a long time that it hit me...God kept his promise.  God fulfilled his word.

I was so caught up looking at the closed door that I didn't realize God has opened another door.  He surprised me in silence.  He silently crept behind my back, subtly, just like a thief in the night.  It took a while for me to realize that the door is already open.  That the grace has already came through this other door.  All this time, I had it at the back of my head, as though keeping tab at God, that he owed me big time because of this one door.  But the cliche is true, when one door closes, another opens.

Through this other door, love came.  Through this other door, God taught me how to love.  Love in its purest.  Love in its truest.  Devoid of costs, of measure. Devoid of conditions, of timing, of control.  I am simply gripped by its power...a power that weakens my defenses yet strengthens my will.

"Will you allow me to love you again?"  The question sounds so simple but I know the consequence of being loved by God is not to simply feel happiness or joy, or even comfort.  To be beheld by God in love is to share in his way of loving...and what is this loving...that which will lay down one's life for a friend, for a beloved.  When love is stronger, more powerful, more meaningful than life itself.

Although the surrender pains me, breaks me, pierces straight through me, it also transforms me.  It changes me.  I begin to see that I am no longer after my own happiness.  I am now after someone else's joy.  It doesn't matter anymore if you are part of that happiness, or if you are the cause of that joy.  The other is more important than yourself.  The focus has switched from yourself to the other.  It is not forced.  You just love.  You just be. Be love.

"Will you allow me to love you again?"  It is a rhetoric question. God knows what my answer is.  But the beauty of this question is not that it begs an answer. Its beauty lies on the invitation.  God will never force anything on me, even his kind of love.  There is no mistaking, God loves me, loves us.  God loves us freely.  In spite of and despite of ourselves. And yet, to share in his kind of loving, God sees that an invitation is necessary. It is necessary because saying yes to this invitation entails responsibility and commitment.  And not everyone is ready. yet.

"Will you allow me to love you again?"