Sacred Circle at Retreat, Reflect, Renew
February 2024
By Darlene Carlson Based on Let Your God Love You By Edwina Gateley
Let your God love you. That simple first word…to LET, really the only thing we are asked to do, and the rest is from God.
Is it so simple?
Christine shares with us that her prayer or mantra throughout the day, Christine, let your God love you. She breaks it down, to “let”: Give yourself permission to stop proving, perfecting, and pleasing. Surrender to an experience that will happen in God’s time. Be open to a gentle invitation to rest and take refuge in God’s comfort.”
To Let: an invitation to allow, surrender, open, rest, refuge…what resonates in you when you hear these words?
In order to receive this love, I am reminded of what needs to be there in order to receive, to let: Space! Roominess! An empty vessel!
This looks like something open, available. It feels light and airy, accepting, a place to hold and keep, to treasure what comes… feeling this way feels good, and I recognize it as a place of freedom. Though I don’t always feel this way, especially as I get caught up in the day.
Am I too full to let this love sink in?
There is something I can do to prepare to LET: I have to let go of the Darlene I think I am, the one who needs to please, to work hard, to help, the one who gets in the way by filling up too much. Sometimes I think I need to be cleaned up, hair done, makeup on, strong and ready. How can there be room for this enormous love when I am in the way with these things I think I should be?
To make more space within, it helps for me to be still. This involves not doing, and it requires me to be quiet, to be in silence. The more I practice being still, the more I feel drawn to it. It is not easy. I can feel vulnerable, exposed, and sometimes unworthy and alone. When I am present to stillness, my heart opens and I experience a fullness of love, like the warmth of the sun on a cold winter day, a big comforting hug, the joy of new life. It’s a time when I can breathe much deeper, feeling content and accepted just the way I am, not over thinking or getting in the way.
This poem by Rumi speaks to me about this place of letting myself receive God’s love:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about
Ideas, language,
even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.
Letting God love me invites a practice of making room, getting ideas and words out of the way, being quiet and still, present, and just receiving, absorbing this enormous love. And, remembering that I am not “letting” alone, in that field when “each other” does not make sense, we are ONE in this enormous love. What a gift to take in, overflow and pour out to share with others. May God’s love wash over you and all of us as One.