Love Is The Hardest Spiritual Practice

Love shows up most clearly when it hurts. When grief strips away the noise, we’re left staring at the one thing we can’t measure and can’t replace: the love that remains after someone is gone. We welcome you back to Solace, Soul Plus Grief with a gentle invitation into prayer, reflection, and spiritual companionship for the grieving heart. 

We move through a poetic meditation on the divine name, light, and the unsettling idea that only in us can God feel “lost” enough to ask questions. From there, we ask a blunt question that many people of faith avoid saying out loud: has “I love you” become more habit than experience? And if it has, what does grief reveal about what love truly is? These reflections connect directly to faith-based grief support, Christian grief resources, and the lived reality of longing after loss. 

The episode also wrestles with one of scripture’s hardest stories: Abraham and Isaac. We sit with the confusion, the missing voices, and the possibility that the real test is not performance but love itself. Finally, we name what grief teaches us in plain terms: love leaves an imprint, sometimes a scar, and tears become one honest way love is “measured.” If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with someone who’s grieving, and leave a review so more people can find this space.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION WHILE GRIEVING IS AVAILABLE :  candeelucas@soulplusgrace.com

ATTEND MY SUMMER WORKSHOP ON "SOULFUL LISTENING" THROUGH THE MARKEY CENTER AT SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY VIA ZOOM.

https://events.scu.edu/markey-center/event/359741-soulful-listening-workshops-on-the-ministry-of

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6

Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Transcript

Prayerful Reflection On God’s Name

When Love Becomes A Habit

Abraham And Isaac Through Love

Tested By Love In Grief

Closing Support And How To Reach Us

Candee 0:25

We welcome you to another edition of Solace, Soul Plus Grief. I'm Candee Lucas, your host. When we started this ministry, we'd hoped to reach those who were grieving and accompany them on their journeys with prayers, reflections, scripture, and other writings that could lead them more easily on their grief journeys. Remember, you're always welcome in our circle of healing love and support. Every prophet's name. I found completeness when each breath began to silently say the name of my Lord. That name, my conception of him extended to me, a hand that led to a place where even his divine name could not exist. Why? Most sounds express discontent, longing or negotiation. The teapot may whistle out an ecstatic cry, but even that I learn to control until everything I knew burst in a glorious symmetry. I have no seams, no walls, no laws. My frontiers and gods are the same. One divine being is existence. All the forests on this earth combined are but a tiny wood fiber, a particle of one spoke on the wheel. What is the relationship of form to the unseen aspects of God? What percentage of God is unseen? What percentage of the truth of Him do we know? He led me to a place where only light existed. Only in us is God so lost that He asks questions. We can't love enough. Or is that true? Has love, has this love which God has shown us, which God continues to show us, with which He continues to hold us? Has it become more of a habit than an experience? Do people say I love you the way I say, or I love horses, or I love spring? Maybe what it means is to remember a world before that love became incarnate, before we could see it and understand it and experience it. We had muddled through time with our own direction, settlement of order in our society. But where was love? Where is love when Abraham takes Isaac up the mountain? I always think of Isaac so trusting in his father, so beholden to his father, having love for his father. And we are told that Isaac is the most precious son of Abraham. But where is Sarah in this? Does Sarah know what Abraham has agreed to do? Or is she left in ignorance? So this story always confuses me. Is it an illustration of God demanding love from Abraham? God testing Abraham's love for God? Or testing Abraham's love for his son? In many ways, it's an illustration of how complex human love is. We love certain people. We love certain things about people. But do we love them unconditionally? Can we show love to another person the way God shows love to us? So maybe I judge Abraham too harshly. Maybe he is practicing his love of God by saying yes without even contemplating the deed that has been requested of him. The killing of his son. And God does rescue Isaac, but he tests Abraham to the very last. I said to my Lord, This holy place I have entered. Is your name the only key to this? And my Lord responded, How old do you think is existence? For eons of time souls have been entering me. Every prophet's name is a key, as is every heart full of forgiveness and love. Seem so difficult. Are we always being tested? What I think is being tested is our capacity for love, our willingness to love, our openness to love. Because you can't make a picture of your love for a loved one. How much space does it create? What does it weigh? How is it measured? One of the ways it's measured is by our tears, by our grief, by our longing for that person who's loved us. Because we're then left with that love. Like an imprint on our heart. You can't fill it with something else. You can't make it go away. It's there. And sometimes we regard it as an imprint. And sometimes we regard it as a scar. As much pain and sorrow that it causes us, that it can cause us. We continue to believe in it. We continue to practice it. We continue to say yes to God. And yes to God's love. That concludes another episode. If you'd like to support us, please subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music. I'm Candee Lucas. Remember, we offer spiritual direction while grieving, free of charge. You can contact us at the email in the show notes. We welcome your feedback. Be gentle to yourselves and go with God.