Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.
—Matthew 5.44
Heavenly Lover,
I confess I don’t want to love.
I want to protect my fear, my hurt and anger.
I want to fix, to control, to be right,
to unload my pain onto another.
When I am this way,
so self-absorbed, so sure of my right,
I abandon your love and work against you.
I become your enemy.
And yet you love me.
No being right, no winning,
just the cross,
just your love.
May your love absorb my pain and fear;
may your love become my love.
May I actually love my enemy,
love them as your beloved,
wounded and precious as I am.
Let me see myself in them,
broken and afraid and tangled in faults,
and truly love them,
with love undiluted by fear or self-concern,
but only wonder and thanksgiving,
and desire that they be well and whole.
May I love my enemy as myself.
By your love in me, let me love.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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