Bridal Posture for Bridal Pasture

My spiritual mother sent me an email in all caps: STOP, AND LET GOD LOVE YOU. This was my Lenten theme. Such a clear directive. I can get so caught up in what I need to do and discerning God’s Will, and the action that I need to take, how I can best love and serve our Bridegroom… good desires, but so much looking at myself. She encouraged me, “Look at Him. Look at what He is doing in your life, His action.”

I see what a constant conversion of gaze this is. A constant turning. Like that beautiful Weston Priory hymn:

Turn to Me, oh man and be saved,’ says the Lord, ‘for I am God. There is no other, none beside me… I call your name.

As we are drawn closer to Christ the Bridegroom in our earthly pilgrimage, I find that the temptations become more subtle and interior. The way the enemy tempts a devout soul desiring holiness is very different than the way he tempts a soul easily lured by the flashy ways of the world. Our temptation won’t be to rob a bank but to think our holiness, our loving Him, is all up to us or to think we have to make sacrifices He is not asking us to make, to refuse a gift He is offering us freely. Our temptation can be that of self reliance, even in good, holy desires like our life of prayer and discerning God’s Will in our lives. We can be allured into trying to figure things out on our own, to analyzing things to death, to efforting our way into His Will and His love.

The invitation is instead, “Not I, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) We are free to allow ourselves to be loved. To be little. To be in need. To recognize that we can only say, “Jesus, I love You too.” Our loving Him will naturally flow from our receiving His love; and how it consoles Him when we trust enough to open and receive His living, overflowing merciful love for us. Letting Him love us is loving Him.

It’s interesting that the first thing the Good Shepherd does for His little lamb in Psalm 23 is to “make me lie down in green pastures.” (Psalm 23: 2) Lie down. He doesn’t ask me to do something. He gives me rest in His pasture of peace.

So for Lent, I gave up over-compensating, over-efforting, over-striving. And I focused on the call to be a little lamb bride. To STOP, AND LET GOD LOVE ME. A little line came to me to remember my stance, to remember to turn my gaze to Him, and receive.

Bridal posture
For bridal pasture
Under the Bridegroom’s stature

In this Easter season, may Mama Mary take us by the hand and help us remain with her in this bridal posture, openly receiving the streaming forth of new life and love from the pierced and shining side of our Bridegroom. To abide in the beaming light of His resurrected Body, radiant with healing love for us, His beloved little lamb brides.

Marian West, Copyright 2025