Learning to Receive Love, Not Just Give It

Healing the parts of you that resist being cared for.

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I’ve spent most of my life giving—showing up, supporting, carrying the weight, and making sure the people I love never had to guess where I stood. But somewhere along the way, I realized something that hit harder than I expected: I didn’t know how to receive love with the same openness I gave it.

I’m writing this as a man trying to do better in my relationship. Not just romantically, but in friendships, ministry, and family. Because the truth is, this isn’t just a “relationship issue”—it’s a heart issue.

Sometimes the hardest thing isn’t loving others… it’s letting others love you.

When you’ve spent years being the strong one, the dependable one, the fixer, the leader, you get used to giving until giving becomes your identity. You don’t even notice the parts of you that flinch when someone tries to care for you. You’re grateful, but guarded. Appreciative, but distant. Present, but not fully open.

And then someone tries to love you in a way you’re not used to—patiently, consistently, without conditions—and suddenly you’re face-to-face with parts of yourself you’ve avoided.

These are the parts I’m healing.

The parts that say, “I don’t want to burden anyone.”

The parts that whisper, “What if they change their mind?”

The parts that learned early that being needed was safer than being known.

But God never designed love as a one-way street. Scripture says, “We love each other because He loved us first” (1 John 4:19, NLT). Even God began with giving and receiving. Love was meant to flow both directions.

Some of us have mastered pouring out… but we tense up when someone pours back in.

Here’s what I’m learning in this season:

Receiving love is a form of humility.

It means admitting you need what someone is offering. It means letting someone see the tired parts, the uncertain parts, the parts that don’t have it all figured out.

Receiving love is a form of trust.

It means believing someone wants to care for you—not because you earned it, but because they chose to.

Receiving love is a form of healing.

The very thing you’ve been resisting might be the thing God is using to restore you.

I’m realizing that love isn’t just expressed through strength. It’s expressed through softness, too. Through listening. Through resting. Through allowing. And sometimes through staying when everything in you wants to pull back out of habit.

I’m learning that receiving doesn’t make me weak—it makes me whole.

And maybe you’re in that same place… learning that you don’t have to be the giver all the time. Learning that the love you give so freely is also the love you deserve.

In this season, I’m letting myself be cared for. I’m letting love teach me how to rest. And I’m letting God show me that it’s okay to open my heart—not just to serve, but to be served.

Because love grows deeper when we allow it to go both ways.