Avoidance Makes Us Fugitives Within Our Own Families

“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude; love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in right.” 

1 Corinthians 13

One thing I’d like to add to Paul’s list of what love does or doesn’t do is this: I believe love does not practice avoidance.

Avoidance is a major problem in many people’s lives and relationships. We avoid looking at bills that we’d rather not be responsible for paying; we avoid medical attention for the sharp pain in our side because we’d rather not know if it’s something serious; and we avoid telling our deepest desires and needs to loved ones for fear that we aren’t worthy of having our needs met by them.

When we practice avoidance we are like fugitives—sometimes within our own families. We are always on the run and we are on constant alert 24 hours a day because we have to keep one step ahead of the problems we choose to resist. Eventually we find ourselves drained and exhausted. And we are rarely happy. Oh, we might manipulate some comfort from the TV, or a Martini, or the internet, or a shopping spree or sugar-indulgence. But once the false high wears off, we find ourselves back on the run again.

Love invites us to stop running, and to take our personal power back from the people and problems we’ve been avoiding. We all have God-given needs and desires, and God is ready at every moment to comfort us into believing that our every need and desire is valuable—and that we are worthy of having our needs and desires fulfilled through the support of others.

Our “worthiness” is God’s gift to us. No one can take our worthiness away from us, but we can choose to give it away through fear and shame. Let’s release ourselves from these twin taboos. We can choose to replace them with love and compassion, honesty and empathy, mercy and forgiveness. We can choose to acknowledge that we are loved in the eyes of God, and that our needs are important and necessary.

Let’s be kind to ourselves by speaking up and honestly telling loved ones what we need from them. And let’s be respectful of our loved ones by earnestly hearing what they need from us in return.

Love is a partnership between equal persons. Manipulation is a partnership between unequal partners. When we avoid our needs, we rely on manipulation to get what we want. We become distant and turned-in on ourselves and everyone suffers. When we trust in ourselves, speak up and admit to our needs, we open our lives to love. And love has no limits. We acknowledge that we are equal to our partners and others. We stop existing in misery and start living in comfort and contentment. We feel closer to God, loved ones and even to ourselves. And all is well.

Allow your soul to shine!