Estrangement

I don’t know of a family that doesn’t have some measure of fracture and estrangement in the limbs and leaves of its family tree. If yours doesn’t I hope you know how uncommonly lucky you are. Most fracture and estrangement is caused because one family member is trying to get an emotional need met by another family member and it’s never going to happen because only God can love us the way we really need to be loved.

An old priest once said to a young newlywed couple, “The best advice I can give you is this: only God can love you the way you need to be loved, so don’t put that on each other.”

The glory of the Resurrection is that it unleashed the repairing power of love full force into the world. If we go to God for the love we’re unsuccessfully trying to get from each other, then we can go to each other with the love that we’ve been freely given by God.