In the area of love for grace to build on nature what is first needed is the grace of healing of memories and the openness and desire on our part to be healed. This healing begins with forgiveness of the persons who in fact or by perception did not show us love. This forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision. It is a decision in grace to bring to the Lord all the hurts and scars, all the perceptions and experiences, all the verbal and non-verbal signs of rejection and non-love of the past.  This choice to forgive each person who so negatively affected us is not for that person's sake, but for our sake, strange as that may sound.  This forgiveness involves not only forgiving the other but asking the other for forgiveness for our response and reaction or for anything that was negative in and from us.

As we identify once more these memories which have been suppressed for so long, as we bring them to the Lord, we are to leave them in the Lord's hand or more appropriately at the foot of the cross.  We have owned what should not have been owned too long.  Now it is time to disassociate ourselves from them so that God can bring his healing within us. Then we can become more receptive of his love as a fact and a perceived reality.  All this will take time for us to recognize as grace builds on nature in this area of our lives.

Even when the fact of God's personal love is a perceived reality, we do not always respond to love with love.  We can acknowledge that someone loves us, but choose not to love that person in turn. This happens all the time in our human relationships. One spouse can be in love with the other but the gift of love not reciprocated. Many marriages have ended in divorce because one person chose to love someone other than the married spouse. (To be continued)