“Love is a thing of depth. When forced to stay on the surface, it flounders about like a fish out of water. . . . If [fish] don’t get below the surface, they will be starved of what gives them life. Love is a bit like that. Love needs depth to live . . . honesty to grow . . . trust to survive.”- Lysa TerKeurst
In Chapter 6 (“Connecting the Dots”) of Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, Lysa TerKeurst talks about the messy and good parts of connecting the dots. That process enables us to see that past situations we walked through aren’t so far removed from us now. Thus, those past events don’t consist of isolated incidents. Therefore, Lysa explains:
“What we experience all throughout life impacts the perceptions we carry. The longer we carry those perceptions, the more they become the truths we believe, live by, operate under, and use to help us navigate life today.”
Above all, Lysa observes, connecting the dots not only helps understand ourselves better. It involves processing what we still need to forgive so we truly move forward in healthy ways. Because the things that mark us from yesterday still form part of the making of us today.
In addition, the crucial connections we make enable us to understand what happened. Not ‘why,’ but ‘what.’ For in order to verbalize forgiveness, we must verbalize what we forgive.
In conclusion, Lysa stresses the importance of being vulnerable:
“We have to be vulnerable to look at the realities of our life and make some of the connections we’re talking about. But we also gain even more vulnerability as a result of increased self-awareness. It becomes hard to pretend with others when we can no longer pretend with ourselves. . . . Isn’t it strange that sometimes it’s the very thing we fear the most that winds up paving a road to freedom.”
For the one who pretends, forgiving always seems like another thing to do. Rather than a freeing process one participates in.
Today’s question: When do you notice that love flounders like a fish out of water? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Healthy vulnerability – the secret”
