Even if...

A few years ago I started a bedtime routine with my children. I began saying, "Even if --, I'm still going to love you!" I would say silly things like, "Even if your hair turns purple! I'm still going to love you" or "Even if you turn into a kitty cat! I'm still going to love you." But I would also say more seriously, "Even if you get mad at me, I'm still going to love you" or "Even if you disobey me, I'm still going to love you."

I started this routine during a time in my life in which I was experiencing significant relational loss and rejection. I wanted to make certain my children knew that no matter what, "even if", their mama would always love them. Because the truth was I knew not all relationships offered unconditional love and my experience of rejection left me wounded and hurting.

Is this not a deeply held longing in all of us? To know that no matter what we do, even if the worst happens, we will still be loved, deeply cherished, and fully accepted? And yet this foundational need for unconditional love has, for most of us, been betrayed. We have experienced rejection and a withdrawal of love for a myriad of reasons leaving us wounded, suffering, and vowing to never expose our vulnerabilities again.

Throughout my career as a counselor, I have sat with people who deeply long to be loved and accepted while simultaneously they are gripped by the fear that if I knew what they did, if I knew fully who they are, I would stop caring for them. I would judge them. I would reject them.

But you know what? It has never happened. And it never will.

Because "Even if..."

Even if you expose the addiction you fight so hard to conceal...

Even if you reveal your hidden fears and insecurities...

Even if you talk about your most shameful secret...

Even if you admit that not only have you been the victim but you have also been the perpetrator...

If that is not a foundation in the counseling room then nothing else will stand, nothing else will make a difference or give healing. We must start from a place of grace, a place of unconditional love and acceptance; and it is from that place that we can safely expose our vulnerabilities, our hurts, and our shame, bring it to the light, and walk away changed.