You Are Loved | Kareena Holloway, E Coach at CR FBC Rogers, Arkansas

As someone who has struggled with Love and Relationship Addiction as well as Codependency for years,  the lines can sometimes become blurry when looking for signs that I am loved. 

I learned early on in life to do and say what I needed to in order to win the affections of those around me.  I was a chameleon, changing who I was in order to feel loved and accepted.  I see clearly now that for all of those years, what I really was doing was controlling and manipulating everyone around me so that I didn't have to feel the sting of rejection or abandonment from anyone.  I just wanted to feel loved, accepted and adored, so that was how I coped.

Over the years that I've been at Celebrate Recovery,  God has helped me to learn three very important truths which I can use as tools in my recovery toolbox whenever the enemy whispers the lie that I am unloved.

1:  God has always loved me! "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. -1 John 4:9-10"

2: God has given me community to love on and to be loved by! "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. -Ephesians 4:11-16"

3:  Jesus paid the ultimate price because he loves us! "For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  -John 3:16"

Prior to coming to Celebrate Recovery, I had heard these things before, but I didn't comprehend them, that they were meant for me!  I kind of felt like it was for somebody else.  I can't really explain it, but I do know that the enemy worked hard on convincing me in my heart that I was unwanted and unlovable.  When I began to accept that these truths were also meant for ME, I began to see some beautiful truths.  With those truths, I also needed to take responsibility for some actions, and that was when I came to realize that I had been trying to control the people in my life.  When I let go of that control, I began to experience deeper, fuller, more authentic friendships with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I no longer made them responsible for my worth.  I put my hope and trust in God to fulfill that, and He has done that!  I now get to be my true self everywhere I go and experience true love and acceptance.

My prayer and encouragement for you is that if you do not yet see your worth in Christ, that you will meditate on the 3 above things and see yourself as the precious son or daughter of God, created for His glory alone.  When you come to accept that fully in your heart, everything else just falls into place.