tightrope of Love.

we want people to love us
how we envision being loved
we want people to say sorry to us
how we envision an apology being given

we set standards and hopes on our hearts
forgetting their fragility

we hope for love
without inviting others into our love language
we desire forgiveness
without sharing what hurts our hearts

we set standards on others
without sharing those standards

we fall into disappointment and hurt
we fear rejection and the absence of intimacy

we crave love and acceptance
to the extent of letting others speak to our heart’s aches

we seek to find love and acceptance in the universe
rather than being found in the Love of the One who made the universe
and who invites us into His Love Story

only when we sacrifice our standards
laying down our heart in it’s fragile state
to the Creator of our hearts
do we learn the language of Love
the depth of intimacy
a n d

the creativity of grace
in meeting us

where we are at

imagine if we were to surrender our hearts to our First Love
allowing His love, His acceptance, His healing to touch our hearts
allowing Him to speak the truth in love to our fears and insecurities

y e t
how often do we neglect to surrender our hearts
to the truest picture of Love we have, that is,
J E S U S
the image of the Living God, the one who calls us to
TAKE HEART

instead of surrender, instead of sacrifice
we so often hold onto our own ideas of
love, hope, standards

we take a hold of our own hearts

we create these ideas of what love should be
featuring conditions and clauses for treatment

overtime, as we develop this picture of what our hearts expect,
and when reality doesn’t line up with these expectations,
we plunge into despair and disappointment
our hearts can become easily disheartened

we believe it to be LOVE that is the problem
we believe it to be the LOVER that is at fault
when it is our hearts that are vulnerable


as the scriptures say:
the heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick; who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”


we so often look to the fruit, rather than the root
this is because the fruit tells us about the root
when we look deeper to the heart we discover that
we are prone to wander, prone to being disheartened

when we take a hold of our hearts
we think ourselves to be creators of love
we believe ourselves to be capable of generating affection
and gaining the attention of others
we think ourselves to be the ones in control of our hearts

b u t
we are not creators of love,
but creatures of love
we cannot make others love us,
but we are made in love and made for love
a n d
because we are made in love,
we are made to GIVE and RECEIVE love,
but we are not the source of Love
we cannot concoct love potions

while we want to take a hold of our hearts
we don’t get to be the rulers of our hearts
we don’t get to control our relationships
and how we give and receive love

we don’t get to paint a picture of a perfect love story in our lives
because there is already a picture of a perfect, fear casting Love


we are invited into the greatest Love story of all time:
we have a Creator, one who is in control,
He is the ruler of our hearts, our first Love,
the One who loved us before we loved Him,
the One who painted the picture and placed us in it,
the One who patiently waits for us to see His work,
to see His hand in all that he had made,
to see His pursuit of our hearts,
His rhythms of loving and giving

we are not only invited to see, but to taste His goodness:
He invites us to join in His work, to partake of His love,
as He gives us a place and purpose in His picture,
as He positions us as recipients of love and grace,
as He calls us to a posture of submission versus striving

we have a God who first loved us, who first forgave us
His love offering, His grace offering
came first

My dear sister made a profound point in one of her voice messages to me the other week. She reflected on the romance narrative, the picture of pursuit, and our hearts desire, particularly as women, for a man to pursue us and to love us and to show their commitment to us in words and deeds. 

I’ve been reflecting on this – we love God, because He first loved us.
I wonder if it’s similar in romantic relationships.
I think, looking into my heart, a big reason why I have grown
to care so much for [insert person] is that he has
pursued and loved and cared so much for me,
and that is such a beautiful thing under God.”

In her reflection, she noted how our desires are found in the dynamic of our relationship with God. How this desire has stemmed from what we have seen in God, how He pursues our hearts, how He first loved us, and how that is an invitation, how that calls us and draws us into a more intimate relationship with Him, knowing He first loved.


brothers, take note.

When we see this displayed, this pursuit that my sister and myself have observed – it reminds us and is a mirror to us of the relationship and response we are called to with our Loving God. When we see that Love has paved a way, this demonstration of Love calls us closer, it gives us assurance that we are loved and will be protected and nurtured. The depth of care and affection that comes with being fully known and fully loved grows as we are shown in word and deed how you take notice and are gentle, considerate and intentional in your pursuit of our hearts.

When you put in the ground work to get to know the heart of another, you become a safe place for that heart. Once you have proven yourself worthy of that hearts attention and sacrificial in your intention, that invites vulnerability and intimacy – allowing one to open up and to share.


sisters, listen close.

Be careful to guard your heart. Just as the scriptures remind us that our hearts are deceitful, prone to wander; we are also prone to worry. When fear and deceit meet, our hearts begin to listen to lies about ourselves, lies about Love, and lies about whether whether we are worthy of Love.

In Philippians [4:7], Paul writes: “and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Note that in this passage we are reminded that our own hearts and minds understanding of truth is not absolute. Our hearts can easily be fooled into interpreting what we believe to be true, and what we believe to be true can be easily distorted by what we allow to influence our hearts.

The call to guard our hearts is a call to guard our understanding, our belief, our hope, our trust, our faith. We are not to hold onto our own ideas of Love, we are not even to hold onto our own hearts. Scripture points us to guard our hearts [prov. 4:23], to set our hearts on Christ [col. 3:1] and to hold onto the Hope that we have in Jesus [1 pet. 1:3].

Paul’s writing in Philippians suggests that the answer to our hearts yearnings is not understanding our desires, it is not clarity – it is P E A C E.

We are told that the peace of God transcends, surpasses, is greater, than our understanding. The answer is not to understand Love or to create our own ideas of Love. So often we want clarity, but what God wants for us is contentment. The answer is not to obtain understanding, but to rest in peace. This peace is found when we come to Jesus. When we come to Jesus, we are invited to A B I D E, to D W E L L, to R E S T in our Prince of Peace.

When we are found in the peace of God, our hearts and minds are guarded in Christ Jesus. In this passage we learn that while in old testament scripture we are invited us to guard our hearts [prov. 4:23], in new testament scripture we are told that we have a Guardian of our Hearts, whose Peace and Love is our shield [phil. 4:7], whose Heart we can rest and rely on when we can’t lean on our own hearts understanding [prov. 3:5].

The scriptures encourage our hearts in this way, to trust in the Lord with all of our heart, and to not lean on our own understanding [prov 3:5], and to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind [luke 10:27].

God is a safe place for our hearts, because He is our first Love. We can invite Him into our whole hearts, because He has proven His pursuit for us and His commitment to us in the form of sacrificial, unconditional Love.


In a podcast I listening to between Jessica Honeggar and Jennie Allen, the following statement was made that I think provides a perfect place to land for this post [note: a secondary post is coming, i have decided to split them]:

In friendship we are pursuers of one another’s hearts; that’s what God does for us and that’s what we can do for one another 

Can I encourage us, as we seek to love and forgive and pursue one another; to look to the fruit and the root, to look to the heart, and to look to Jesus.

To finish, here is a poem I posted on insta, inspiring the title of this post:

what if to live wholehearted
is to walk on a tightrope of Love
〰️
our hearts desire to be fully known
but to do so takes vulnerability
it only takes one step on the tightrope
for us to realise we are prone
to fearing + breaking + falling
〰️
but what if to walk the narrow way
is to walk on a tightrope of Love
〰️
what if to live wholehearted
is to follow the Way of Love
to listen to the Whisper of truth
that leads us into deeper trust
〰️
our hearts desire to be fully known
but what if it is only in the unknown
that we learn that Love requires trust
〰️
we cannot see our hearts
but our hearts can be seen
what a marvellous mystery

〰️

🖤
〰️

Respond from the Heart