Last night, Jon and I were talking about insecurities. As I was telling him how safe and secure he makes me feel, it led to a conversation about why I haven't felt secure or safe in other relationships. As I told him these stories my heart ached, partly with the pain of the stories, but also because I wanted to apologize for letting people treat me poorly and for treating myself poorly. I wanted to apologize for believing lies that were spoken to me in word and implication and for speaking lies to myself. I wanted to apologize for accepting lesser love than what was waiting for me. I wanted to apologize not because he was asking me to feel guilty about any of these things, but because, though I've grown a lot into the truth, there are still small ways in which those hurts keep us from being closer right now and I wish there was nothing coming between us at all. Our conversation continued to ways we can grow through them together. 

Then it hit me: this is how God feels, only so much more because He loves me perfectly the way no one on this earth ever will, and He created me to be close to Him. I have given my heart to lies and lesser love when the security and safety of the unfailing love of the God of the universe awaited me. God doesn't desire me to feel guilty but aches because these lies have gotten in the way of my understanding His love for me, His great and perfect love where I am to be free from insecurity and shame because He holds no judgement of me. 

It made me reflect back on something I read in This Momentary Marriage when John Piper looks at Adam and Eve being naked and without shame in Eden:

"I can be free from shame for two conceivable reasons: One conceivable (but unreal) reason is that I am perfect and have nothing to be ashamed of. The other reason I could be free from shame is that even though I am imperfect, I have no fear of being disapproved...
Marriage was designed from the begining to display the new covenant between Christ and the church... The very essence of this new covenant is that Christ passes over the sins of his bride. His bride is free from shame not because she is perfect, but because she has no fear that her lover will condemn her or shame her because of her sin.
This is why the doctrine of justification by grace through faith is at the very heart of what makes marriage work the way God designed it. Justification creates peace with God vertically, in spite of our sin. And when we experienced horizontally, it creates shame-free peace between an imperfect man and an imperfect woman."

I want to abide in the love of Christ without shame and I want to come to an understanding of what His love for me looks like without the pollution of the lies I have believed about love and about myself before, and I want to stretch that out horizontally in the way I love others around me. I want to love them in a way that speaks of the Truth into their life and not lies.