A Cry For Love

Several years ago I read “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. It caused me to realize that I was terrible at loving my spouse the way she needed to be shown love. However, it also taught me how to and gave us language to help us communicate better when we were feeling unloved. I was reminded of this book when I read a friend’s post on social media. She wrote that she, like many girls, has insecurities and wanted to be put on a pedestal by her man. She wanted to be told that he loves her and to be communicated with constantly. She completed the post by saying that sometimes we are too damaged from previous relationships and need reassurance and love more than anything. From reading that, it’s clear what her love languages are, but more than anything it’s a cry for love.

One of our greatest needs is to be loved. God put inside each of us the need to be loved, to know love and to love. Genesis says that we are made in God’s image, and 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. Part of that image that we’re made in is a love shaped hole in our life. He created us in a way that only He can fill that void and need in our life, but if we don’t look to Him to fill it, we will search elsewhere. We expect other humans to fill that void and unfortunately it’s not enough. We will always be searching for that missing part and feel like something is missing. I’ve talked to person after person who has searched in unconventional ways to try to stop that feeling of something missing only to feel like there’s something wrong with them or that they must be unlovable. Their cry for love is often silent and unseen by us.

I believe our highest priority in life is to find intimacy with God and that it will determine the course and impact of our life. We cannot truly love others or receive true love until we have received love from God. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love each other because he loved us first” (NLT). Once we know what love is, we’re more capable of loving others more fully because we have experienced true love. We know that God’s love is selfless because He loved this world so much that He gave us His one and only Son. He went to great lengths to demonstrate His love for us when we least deserved it. He heard our cry for love and responded. That void you feel, no matter how you express your cry for love and need for intimacy, is first found in Jesus. No person or thing will ever fill it. You were created to know God and find your wholeness in Him. No matter what you’ve done or what lengths you’ve gone to to fill that void, God still loves you a desires intimacy with you. He’s only a prayer away.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash