When I Stop Trying to Earn Closeness
Love doesn’t usually announce itself.
It doesn’t arrive with fireworks or certainty. Most of the time, it shows up quietly—
in the space where I’m no longer performing to be kept.
I used to think love was something I had to generate.
Something proven through effort. Through insight. Through being useful, agreeable, interesting, steady.
Love, I assumed, was fragile. Easily withdrawn. Easily disappointed. Something that stayed only as long as I stayed impressive. So I learned how to manage it. I learned how to read rooms. How to anticipate needs. How to offer the version of myself most likely to be received.
It looked like care. It felt like responsibility. But underneath it was a quieter fear: If I stop contributing, will I still belong?
Anchor Story
I didn’t realize how conditional my understanding of love had become
until I noticed how tired I felt trying to keep it alive.
Tired of explaining myself clearly enough. Tired of softening the parts of me that felt inconvenient. Tired of carrying the unspoken belief that love requires maintenance— and that if I miss a step, it might disappear.
Not because anyone said that outright. But because love, at times, had come with expectations. With unspoken terms. With closeness that subtly depended on my ability to stay small, or strong, or agreeable.
So I adapted. I loved carefully. I loved competently. I loved in ways that reduced risk. And I told myself that was maturity.
Reflection
But the love Scripture calls fruit doesn’t grow that way.
- It isn’t produced through effort or awareness.
- It isn’t sustained by vigilance.
- It doesn’t need me to stay impressive in order to remain.
Love, as fruit, is not something I offer God. It’s something God grows in me. And that matters—because God does not love transactionally. He does not stay near because I’m useful. He does not withdraw when I am inconvenient. He does not confuse intimacy with access or control.
His love is not hurried. Not strategic. Not fragile.
It stays.
Which means when love begins to grow in me, it doesn’t make me more impressive. It makes me more honest. Less managed. Less afraid of being fully seen. Less convinced that belonging depends on my performance.
Love, as fruit, is not the reward for spiritual effort. It is the evidence of God’s life present within me— steady, unforced, unthreatened by my limits.
And sometimes the smallest miracle happens:
I stop trying to secure love.
Because something deeper than effort is holding me now—
not louder, not urgent,
not conditional—
just faithful.
