What was supposed to be a comment...

On Mare's post below..:

AHHHH! I love this more and more! I read it the other day rather hurriedly. But today I've been so incredibly bored and revisited it without any distractions and it just blows my mind.

God is good to us regardless. By him giving us somebody it is such an incredible blessing to show us how much he loves us.

I have a hard time with this sometimes because I feel like my view of love is sometimes selfish - well it's almost always ultimately selfish with a facade and an intellectual understanding that I'm supposed to be selfless. I'm only recently learning how to truly love completely selflessly.

My counselor told me that it's a psychological theory/belief (not sure what you would call it) that our perception of God is a mirror of our perception of our parents. To me my parents have always loved me - I would never doubt that. But their love seems ultimately self-directed. I feel if they truly loved me they would say, "We love you, now do what you want to do. We had our time with you. We've watched you grow and helped you along the way. Now it's your turn to take the reins."

I feel like that's what God is telling us. And not only is telling us but wants us to do. And He gives us awesome consolation prizes along the way. What would the world be like if God kept all of us to Himself?

“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.” - Robert Fritz

from the mouth of Cistercian abbot, St. Aelred of Rievaulx

It is no small consolation in this life to have someone to whom you can be united in the intimate embrace of the most sacred love; in whom your spirit can rest; to whom you can pour out your soul; in whose delightful company, as in a sweet consoling song, you can take comfort in the midst of sadness; in whose most welcome, friendly bosom you can find peace in so many worldly setbacks; to whose loving heart you can open, as freely as you would to yourself, your innermost thoughts; through whose spiritual kisses – as by some medicine – you are cured of the sickness of care and worry; who weeps with you in sorrow, rejoices with you in joy, and wonders with you in doubt; whom you draw by the fetters of love into that inner room of your soul, so that though the body is absent, the spirit is there, and you can confer all alone, the two of you, in the sleep of peace away from the noise of the world, in the embrace of love, in the kiss of unity, with the Holy Spirit flowing over you; to whom you so join and unite yourself that you mix soul with soul, and two become one.