In 1999 I was in the nosebleed seats of an LA stadium getting ready to watch Greg Laurie speak at the Harvest Crusade. He was a prominent pastor who held events that were a sort of religious pep rally for God. People would travel from all over to go to these things, so when a new church friend invited me, I felt special. It was a guy friend, and this was the equivalent of a date for young college age Christians.
I hated the crowd, but the energy was overflowing with excitement and it felt good. I had never belonged to anything before. During the worship portion of the show, with music as the background, they passed around KFC buckets to collect tithes in. I had planned for this. I didn’t have much back then, could barely make rent most days, but I was ready. I had $25 left until my next paycheck. I stuck a $20 bill in one pocket, and I put the $5 bill in the other. That would be my tithe, and the twenty would be for food and other expenses.
When the bucket came around to me, I joyfully tossed my $5 into it and continued singing along with the worship band. A little while later, I checked on my twenty just to be sure I had it. When I pulled it out of my pocket, it was a five. Wait. No. Had I given them my twenty? No, I needed that. Five dollars wasn’t going to be enough for the rest of the night!
I started to get butterflies and I couldn’t concentrate on the music anymore. I stuffed the five back in my pocket and began to pray. God, what am I going to do? I don’t really know this guy that well, I can’t ask him to cover me, I need that twenty! I heard a voice from inside me asking me for my trust. I had a shaky relationship to money already. My emotional safety depended on that money.
Again, I heard a call to trust, so I took a long deep breath and decided to trust that my generous tithe of $20, about 3 hours of work at TJ Maxx, would reap some reward later and not get me into a heap of trouble tonight. I began to trust that somehow it would do good for someone who needed it more than I did. Somehow, God would get me through with my last five dollars. In trusting, I started to relax and even feel good that I was doing good. I started to think about what a big deal it was for me, to give so much. At 21 years old, trying to survive on three part time jobs, I didn’t have much to spare. But I wanted to give what I could.
Just as I was settling into the thought and resigned to the money being gone, I heard, “Check again.”
Shaking my head in confusion, I protested. I had just looked at it. Why look again? But I felt the call, so I carefully pulled the bill out of my pocket again. It was the twenty. There was now $20 in my pocket where I had been sure I’d seen $5 just moments ago. What??
The music was coming to an end and they were moving on to announcements and sermons. People were sitting down and it was getting quiet. What had just happened? Was I seeing things? I felt crazy. But that voice kept saying, “Trust.”
I hardly paid attention to the rest of the service or the 2-hour drive back to San Diego, the money swap was the only thing on my mind. I was so sure I had accidentally given away the larger bill. I had been frantic about it. It hit me as I was staring out the window at the city lights along the freeway. It wasn’t about the money. It was about my ability to trust that inner voice. At the time I thought it was God—today I call it intuition—but the message was to trust. In what, I still don’t know. Something higher than me, who knows more than me, was asking me to give more than I wanted to, and to trust that it would all work out.
My capacity to give was dependent on my capacity to trust that everything would be okay if I gave all I had. I had been genuinely afraid of losing that $20, but ultimately decided it was a good thing. I was feeling really good about it, proud of myself, even.
Our capacity to love is the same. We can only love as freely as we can trust that things will work out if we do. And my capacity to love is practiced in how well I love myself. I can love unconditionally because I love myself unconditionally. But I wasn’t always capable of love at this level. I didn’t always have a high capacity for love.
Before I began to see and embrace my shadows—the parts of me I don’t like—I couldn’t hold the shadows of others. I held myself to a particular standard of perfection, so I did the same with others. I was highly critical of myself, so I judged and criticized others. I didn’t trust myself, so I was suspicious of people around me too.
When I began to look at these things one at a time, and forgive myself for them, I was able to get to the bottom of why I was that way. I still find shadows I didn’t know about before or had been ignoring because it was too much at the time. I’ve developed a habit now of saying to myself, “It’s okay, this is just where you’re at right now. You can’t be further ahead than now. Take your time getting through this one and you’ll be ahead of it soon.”
I give myself time to explore old wounds without pressure to heal faster. I allow myself breaks when it hurts too much. I give myself everything I can in every moment, and give myself grace when it may seem not enough to someone else—or to an older more critical version of me. I don’t get impatient with myself. I just love who I am in the capacity I have right now.
This is now how I approach others. Because I’ve practiced on myself, learned to love myself, I can more easily branch out to do the same with everyone else.
I’ve been able to see this capacity in others and give them the same grace. I meet myself where I’m at from one day to the next, so I can do this with others too. I did it with B. When we broke up a couple of years ago, women asked me why not just block him, why still speak well of him. In their eyes he had “love bombed” and “discarded” me. But I saw it differently.
I saw a man who loved to the fullest of his capacity. He was deeply wounded, more than he let on initially. It came out in conversations in the months following the breakup. I sensed it when we were together, but when he broke it off in April, I could see him on the edge of a breakdown. He was erratic, inconsistent, and spiraling, but there was nothing I could do for him. Still, he loved. He had been right—it wasn’t enough to sustain a relationship, but it was everything he could give.
The Widow’s Offering
Mark 12: 41–44
41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts.42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
He was the widow with an offering and it was more than most men had offered me. He had very little to give, but he gave all he had, and I loved him for it. I didn’t need more. I do now, but I didn’t then. He was enough. What he gave me was more than enough—it was everything I needed at that time.
Being slightly ahead of him in healing my own wounds, I had a little more to give, and I’m sure this is what made him feel like he wasn’t enough. He thought his offering was too small. What he couldn’t understand back then was that no offering is too small when it’s genuine. We were mismatched in this, but neither better or worse. We both gave to our fullest capacity.
About a year ago, someone in the comments asked me if I ever thought about getting back together with him. Of course I had. I still think about it now and then, and the answer changes all the time. Although love is unconditional, a relationship is not.
A relationship requires this equity in love, each of us giving to our capacity, but it also requires trust from both of us. I have to trust that a man can sustain his capacity for love because he’s giving authentically. He has to trust me to do the same. And we have to trust each other to remain committed to our own personal growth first, and then to fostering a healthy connection between us.
I don’t currently know a man like this, but I have a good feeling about men in general these days. I’m watching them learn and grow alongside me and I know it won’t be long before my path crosses one of theirs. For now, I continue to grow my capacity for love, for myself first, and then to my family and friends. I’m digging a well so deep within me, I’ll never run out of love.
Conduit You are a conduit for love Love flows into you And then out of you And into those around you You are not the source of love But the source of love has found you The love that you share with others increases in potency The longer it resides within you Your heart is racing to give of itself Before your mind can begin to If in fear you keep love at bay Because you think you don’t deserve it The love you give is an empty tray About to fall as you serve it Though If in haste and anxiety, You rush to push love out to others In the hopes of getting some of it back That love has very little chance To pass through you And will highlight the love you lack And so what you receive of love Will be just as watered down But the deeper the well inside you The more powerful your love is When you spread that love around
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