In the Valentine’s season, most marketplaces are focused on happy love, successful relationships deemed worthy of fancy dinners, pricey jewelry, and the best romantic fanfare. When they do pitch their product to a relationship on the rocks, it’s to convince you that their class, board game, or gift certificate will restore what’s been lost.
Worse still, others will convince you that being a cynic, a man-hater, or a rebel against love makes you more powerful. In this, their selling feature only adds to the power trip of a broken heart.
Regardless of marketing pitches or products purchased, for many of us, Valentine’s Day isn’t just a day when we grab dinner with a spouse. It’s a day that we reflect on the love we’ve lost or the love that’s hanging on by a thread. Our minds don’t only consider romantic relationships, but also everyone within our community with whom we routinely interact.
Unfortunately, in a world full of fallen people, there are those in our daily dealings who are incredibly hard to love, especially when they make us feel so unloved.
Love Doesn’t Displace Responsibility
When we think about that one person we deem difficult to love, we quickly rattle off a list of (often justifiable) reasons we struggle to keep them in our lives, let alone love them. Perhaps they abuse our generosity through finances or time, want us to initiate all conversations, or exhibit narcissistic, passive-aggressive, or emotionally manipulative behaviors.
These people can be bosses, coworkers, family members, “friends,“ and even fellow church members, and whether we have broken all ties with them or not, we know what it means to feel unloved. We are miserably familiar with extending relational efforts that are never reciprocated.
Thus, it’s easy to say and fully believe that it’s easier to love one person more than another. However, this “ability” isn’t an accurate perception of love because love isn’t selective. It’s a selfless, Spirit-driven way of being. So how can we remain faithful in our calling to practice unrestricted love when we feel unloved and/or must walk away from a toxic, dangerous relationship?
We must accept that our capacity to love can’t be dictated by those who have hurt us. We can forgive them and move forward without their damage destroying our hearts and our calling to sacrificial charity. Meanwhile, we must be willing to reflect on ways we might have negatively impacted a reconcilable, safe relationship, intentionally or not.
Otherwise, feelings of distrust and cynicism guide our thoughts and actions, and we can’t rest in God’s love as our fulfillment and worth.
Love Won’t Disregard the Spirit
An easy way to ensure that we aren’t allowing hurt to take the reins of our hearts is to consider if pride and impatience have taken root. It’s easy for these vices to creep into our thoughts and feelings, telling us someone should change more quickly or that we’re at fault in a particular situation, but all they do is keep us shackled to our pain. Then, the state of our souls is determined by unhealthy, unkind people, not our identity in Christ.
Remember, the enemy’s sole goal isn’t to tempt you to sin. It’s also to isolate you from the freedom of God’s purifying love because he knows that in the presence of God’s love, sin holds no power, and hurt can’t last. After all, God doesn’t want your broken heart to grow cold.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that God’s love tolerates abuse—we weren’t called, as His Bride, to be habitually betrayed by others. And even if we hold fault in certain places, because we are all sinners, we were never meant to live in dangerous, soul-damaging relationships.
This means that loving well when you feel unloved is a conscientious, internal working between you and the Spirit. It’s a growing pain that demands self-reflection and honesty with God. Granted, it might not “fix“ an earthly relationship, but it gifts your heart the patience, humility, and empathy to let love have the final say.
It gives you the wisdom, discernment, and self-control to recognize which relationships need honest conversations for reconciliation and which are unhealthy and should be left behind.
Love Can’t Ignore Personal Growth
Since being diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Secondary Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I’ve discovered the power in sharing my heart. It’s not because I have medicinal wisdom or can perform miracles. But I know what it means to breathe a sigh of relief and think, “Oh, it’s not just me. Someone else is struggling too.“
So I share these “tips“ for personal growth when feeling unloved, not because I’ve overcome my own bitterness or frustration, but because I’m growing, repenting, and healing, too. I’m with you in the pastures that aren’t so green, that are brown and coarse from being beaten and trodden by another’s calloused or careless heart.
These are spiritual strategies I’ve incorporated as I allow God’s love to work on me:
1. Take Inventory of Your Feelings
When I spiral, allowing another person’s unhealthy habits to control my behavior, it’s because I’ve failed to keep my feelings in check. I’ve felt the initial anger or sadness and allowed my emotional overwhelm to dictate how I respond. And this never ends well. Not ever.
There is nothing wrong with feeling saddened when you feel unloved, and there’s even a place for righteous anger, but at the height of our emotional reaction to the most heartbreaking times, we aren’t at our best. All too often, we allow circumstance to trump God’s guidance.
This circles back to the impatience and pride we discussed earlier, when we don’t allow ourselves the room to remember that we are human. We are flawed, too, and our knee-jerk response to feeling hurt or rejected will rarely produce righteousness or healing.
The next time you feel that initial sting from another person—and you know your body’s warning signs—be disciplined enough to practice patience and humility. Step away while your body processes that first emotional response, and be patient and humble enough to assess your heart, not theirs.
2. Seek Wise Third-Party Counsel
An unbiased, godly, third-party perspective can be a game-changer as you navigate feelings of rejection or heartache. Often, going to others who know both you and the person who has left you feeling unloved isn’t wise. Their predetermined bias will dictate their advice, making it just as susceptible to their emotions and personal opinions.
My husband and I see a Christian counselor because there are people in our circle of influence with whom we don’t know how to interact. They make us feel unheard or disregarded. Our Christian counselor has the tools to create conversations that force us to look at where we might be handling a relationship wrong or how we could better communicate our feelings and needs. She also guides us to recognize which relationships aren’t salvageable.
Love gets a bit uncomfortable and shows up to hear the truth, though, even if it calls our unrecognized sins to the light or urges us to leave an unhealthy person behind.
3. Lean into Healthy Love
When someone makes you feel unloved, and they are content in being emotionally, mentally, verbally, or even physically abusive, it’s not your place to change them. In fact, you can’t. That’s between them and God.
However, feeling unloved by one person or group of people shouldn’t stop you from loving and leaning into the wonderful people God has placed in your life. Don’t stop showing up for others, don’t give up on serving with God’s guidance, and don’t quit on the people who don’t quit on you.
We desperately need each other in this Christian walk. The world is too cruel and tricky to navigate alone. So when you feel unloved, pour out your love into a healthy, safe, and encouraging place. Don’t let your well run dry.
Love Rests in Truth
This Valentine’s Day, if you find yourself stacking up all the loves that have been lost, all the ways you feel discarded and rejected, challenge yourself to take inventory of your feelings, find a trustworthy, godly outside perspective, and continue to pour out love in other areas of your life.
Your worth never has and never will be held by anything but the gentle, all-loving, unchanging hands of your gentle Maker. Rest in that truth this Valentine’s season.
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/CandyRetriever
Peyton Garland is an author, editor, and boy mama who lives in the beautiful foothills of East Tennessee. Subscribe to her blog Uncured+Okay for more encouragement.
