One of the authors I am reading right now is Ginny Olsen. In her book on ministering to teenager girls she points out the importance of girls having healthy relationships with parents. They need to have relationships where they are affirmed of their worth and experience real love. Unfortunately, as Olsen points out, the consequence of not experiencing a loving, nurturing home environment is often that girls seek out what they are missing in other relationships...even if these relationships are unhealthy and destructive. (see: Olsen, Ginny. Teenage Girls: Exploring Issues Adolescent Girls Face and Strategies to Help Them. 2006.)
I think that this correctly expresses the human need to experience love. People will do all sorts of things to find and hold onto love...even poor reflections of it. Indeed, how many times have we known someone to compromise on a value, belief or principle for the sake of being accepted by another person? This is not a rare occurrence. Some people will compromise what they hold dear in order to experience love even if that form of love is full of flaws and may be unhealthy. We are wired to crave love...we need to be known and accepted.
But there is hope. Paul writes about God's passionate love for his children that cannot be moved or diminished (check out Romans 8:35-39). Those of us who have been given new life through the sacrifice of Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can rest in the reality that God's love for us is immovable. We no longer need to search for love because love found us and will never leave us. This is our new reality in which our new life is based. Indeed we have a message for a world that is looking for love in all the wrong places, is that what they are looking for is found in Christ. The love that binds the broken and heals. The love that makes people whole again.
just a thought...J
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