Love and Worth
“For here is what love actually means: receiving something of which, as you know in the depths of your soul, you are unworthy. Love is what you will never deserve to receive! You are so unworthy in comparison with the one who loves you so beautifully and abundantly, and you know that you do not deserve to be loved with such strong love as that with which he loves you. There have been many cases in our lives when each of us as felt conquered by the love we received. Perhaps we expected to be scolded, spat upon, but we received love instead. This is an extraordinary virtue. Why? Because such love possesses enlivening power. And love is always good and tender, and hides a delightful nobility. It never wounds.” (Bishop Ignatie Trif)
“Christ our God “overthrow[s] everything” (Job 11:10). We may know Him directly; He teaches us what we can and ought to say to the Father: “Glory to Thy might, O Lord, Who doest all things well.” Knowing our wicked transgressions, Christ did “not overlook” our sins (Job 11:11). Rather, He suffered on the Cross and forgave all who would receive Him. We can leave all vain buoying up to Zophar and others who believe that men are simply “equal to a donkey in the desert” (vs. 12). Our gracious Savior confirmed our worth when He took “the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men . . . became obedient to the point of death . . . Therefore God also has highly exalted Him” (Phil 2:7-9).” (Dynamis 8/8/2019)
“Salvation is something that has happened to the entire cosmos. But it is not merely some objective truth, an idea which we can learn about. It is something we participate in – and because we can experience it personally, we know of God’s love for us by experience. It is not something we only hear about, it is something we experience by allowing Christ to live in us. As the Prophet Job exclaims after his encounter with God: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). We encounter the God of love and in knowing God as love, we also experience total amazing grace as we realize our own sinfulness has made us unworthy of being in God’s presence, and yet God has made that possible through Christ.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“We can experience a deep and profound incongruence when others try to love us, affirm us, and even look out for us. It is as though they are giving us a gift, but we cannot accept it, because we believe and feel that we are unworthy. This tends to indicate the presence of shame. It can also indicate the presence of fear…that if I allow others to get close, I will just end up being hurt all over again… When we are listening to the past, living in function of it, or trying to prove a belief wrong that was learned in the past, we can often overlook the source or presence of the healing experiences in the present, even those in our own homes. We might have been unknowingly rejecting their healing messages and affirmations. Whether it is because we doubt they could be true or it is out of fear, it is very tragic. We speak of the basic elements of love and safety. To be healthy, we all need love and a sense of safety…we need to allow ourselves to be loved and to feel safe. Everyone is lovable, including ourselves. So, we learn to give humanity a second chance. This is the great paradox for those of us on the healing path. The very humanity that so failed us or hurt us, is the same humanity that we need to heal us. (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“Sometimes it’s really hard to accept that someone finds us worthy of being loved despite knowing the worst about us. But that is how God loves us. We know this in our heads but when it really sinks into our hearts it is both liberating but also motivating in the right way. It motivates us to freely love ourselves and others in the same forgiving and unconditional way He loves us.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
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