Love, Care Bears and My Religious Trauma
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Care Bears are part of my Religious Trauma story, so when I found this mug at an estate sale with and the quote, “Love is great for growing things,” it all made healing sense I should get it.
Inside fundamentalist and control based religious environments, love is often mocked. “Those people just believe that LOVE fixes everything...that’s not true...you need Jesus combined with Holy living, to call out sin and to live by these specific Biblical principles…”
Love also isn’t just love inside that system. It’s a "type" of love based on some Greek or Hebrew root and each type of love applies to certain people or situations.
Love is something "the world" embraces and only those who believe the right things understand God and what love really is.
Love is something you earn by doing or believing the right things. Love can also be lost and you receive severe punishment if you believe or do the wrong things.
Love isn’t love, it’s a set of guiding practices and rules. Love has been formulated, regulated and weaponized.
No, what I have said isn’t taught exactly as I’ve stated, but it is lived and practiced, implied and felt.
Imagine being a child who has this natural, organic, human and dare I say God-given desire to be loved and loved fully for who they are and no other reason. And instead that child is met with rules and consequences, distance and loneliness, a sense of brokenness and not being good enough, being taught to try harder and receives acceptance only within the exacting (often implied and not spoken) parameters.
Fundamentalism and high demand religious practices have unwittingly told their own trauma stories through the people who enforce, convey and perpetrate these beliefs. A root of these unhealthy beliefs is fear and control - signs of great trauma both for the theologian who crafted and the people who embrace.
My inner child needed this simple Care Bear mug reminder, “Love is great for making things grow.”
As I have unraveled tangled and harmful spiritual teachings I’ve come to find love, to find God, in the stillness. Away from the noise and chaos of “right belief” and dogma and absolutism.
If it’s true that, “perfect love casts out fear,” and also that, “God is love,” one could conclude that if there is fear, it is not of God and it cannot be love.
A child afraid of their authoritarian parents who are demanding obedience and respect, a person living in anguish of experiencing God’s wrath if they think or wear something sinful, a wife terrified by her "head of the home," patriarchal husband. This is not love. It is fear and control.
Love makes things flourish.
Love empowers people to reach for the moon.
Love gives space for mistakes. Love cannot be bottled, a formula written down or given rigid boundaries.
Love is simple.
Love is kind, good, gentle and seeks to do no harm.
Love sits in an open hand. Love isn’t a progressive or political idea.
Love seeks to heal, help and bring hope.
“Love is great for growing things.”
*Originally a Facebook post in July of 2024.*
This article is not intended to treat or diagnose any condition.
Rebekah is not a licensed therapist or clinician. Any advice or opinions given on this site are strictly her own observation and insights based on personal experiences and study. It should in no way take the place of professional assistance.