My dear sisters,
It’s that time of year again.
We see the different shades of red and pink everywhere we go; the different assortments of heart-shaped products ranging from chocolate to something trivial, like stationery sets packaged in a heart container. (Do they have those? Not sure – although I wouldn’t be surprised.)
Valentine’s Day.
Ah yes – one of the only, if not the only, other festivity other than Christmas that brings people to the mall, to restaurants, to online stores – the list goes on. And I totally understand why.
Love sells.
Not to sound too cynical, but our world has done a superb job with making it seem like love is a necessity, which is true to some extent. But the image of love that the world sells has somewhat distorted what, or who Love truly is. Love has been reduced to self-gratification. Often times, we seek to be fulfilled by a person who will “complete the void” in our hearts; the one who will make everything okay.
My sisters, it is valid for us to feel the longing to love. In fact, I believe that all human hearts have been designed to have a longing to love and to be loved. For women, our hearts were especially designed to be a resting place. This is why the desire to care for something, or in most cases, someone, is so ingrained within us. This is such a beautiful feature of our womanhood because it shows the core of our very being: we were made to nurture.
But, given this specific aspect of our identity as women, it is not to be taken lightly – nor is it to be rushed.
The world has portrayed an image of love that is consistent with its mantra of instant gratification. It depicts love as something that’s already made, put on display and is just waiting to be purchased, similar to a diamond that sits on a ring.
My sisters, love is a process. Often times, we forget that the breathtaking diamonds we see on display originate from graphite – the same dark substance that is used in pencils. But in order for graphite to come anything close to the diamonds we see in jewelry stores, extremely high pressure needs to be applied to it – about 150 thousand times the atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface. Such pressure would be deadly to humans! In a similar way, the preliminary form of love we have in our hearts needs to undergo such a dramatic change – but we are not spared from this process. The high pressures that come with refining that love also calls us to die to ourselves and our desires, in the hopes that our love will soon be able to reflect the beautiful and self-giving love that Jesus continuously offers us.
I’m not trying to say that we need to be perfect before we can love a significant other. The intention to improve ourselves and how we love is more important than striving for perfection. Let us strive to refine the love inside ourselves by loving those entrusted to us at the moment: our families, our friends, people we encounter, etc. By loving those around us, especially when it is hard, we are allowing the graphite of love in our hearts to be continually molded. As time goes on, what was once graphite soon becomes a diamond: beautiful and resilient.
My sisters, let us trust the process.
Let us embrace the process.
After all, if something as beautiful as diamonds can come out of it, I can only imagine what it can do to love.
Your sister in Christ,
Alyssa
Alyssa Gutierrez – Sister East Cluster Head | CFC-Youth Pacific Region
