*_🍞Our Daily Bread🍞 24-10-2021_*
*Talk, Trust, Feel*
By: *Monica La Rose*
_"Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel was the law we lived by," says Frederick Buechner in his powerful memoir Telling Secrets, "and woe to the one who broke it." Buechner is describing his experience of what he calls the "unwritten law of families who for one reason or another have gone out of whack." In his own family, that "law" meant Buechner was not allowed to talk about or grieve his father's suicide, leaving him with no one he could trust with his pain._
_Can you relate? Many of us in one way or another have learned to live with a warped version of love, one that demands dishonesty or silence about what's harmed us. That kind of "love" relies on fear for control—and is a kind of slavery._
_We can't afford to forget just how different Jesus' invitation to love ❤️is from the kind of conditional love❤️ we often experience—a kind of love we're always afraid we could lose. As Paul explains, through Christ's love ❤️we can finally understand what it means to not live in fear (Romans 8:15) and start to understand the kind of glorious freedom (v. 21) that's possible when we know we're deeply, truly, and unconditionally loved. We're free to talk, to trust, and to feel once more—to learn what it means to live unafraid._
```Reflect & Pray```
_Are there any unspoken "rules" you've learned as conditions for acceptance and love? How might you live differently if you believed you didn't have to follow those rules to be loved?_
*_Loving ❤️ God, at times I'm afraid to live honestly with myself and with others—thinking that by doing so I'll no longer be loved. Heal my heart, and help me believe in and live for the glory, freedom, and joy Your love ❤️ makes possible._*
*_Our Daily Bread_*