There’s a book that changed my life when I was going through a very difficult season as a young adult. I had only been a Christian for a few years, but there was something wrong with me, and I didn’t know what it was. So I walked into a Christian bookstore, asking God to lead me to the right book, because I had no idea what I was looking for. I don’t know why, but I picked up this book by John Townsend called Hiding From Love. At the time, I was an emotional basket case. Someone really hurt me a few years earlier, and as a result, I built up walls around my heart, determined not to ever let anyone hurt me again. But the walls were keeping people out- the very people I needed if I was going to heal.

In his book, Townsend explained that we tend to hide the bad parts of ourselves that we don’t like. And this is what I was doing. But what Townsend said seemed counterintuitive to me; he said what I needed was to bring those bad parts of myself out of hiding and into the light so that God could heal them. I needed to expose those bad, unlovable parts of myself to God so that he could love them with his grace and lead me back to wholeness. The hurt I had experienced was the thing I needed the most, because if you’re not allowing yourself to feel pain and hurt, you’ll never know the God who will comfort you with his unconditional love.

God takes our bad parts and turns them into the very places where His grace meets us. What all of this meant was that I needed to learn how to be vulnerable. If I wanted to find the love I longed for, I needed to put myself in a position where I could get hurt. I needed to be willing to open my heart again and trust God to give me the grace and healing that people couldn’t provide. In other words, I had to learn to open my heart and receive the love He was offering all along, and this is exactly what happened just a few months later.

I found myself heartbroken again, but this time I found joy in the Lord through the brokenness. What the other person couldn’t give me, I took to God, and he wrapped his arms around me and told me it was okay to be weak, that he would love me along with those bad, unlovable parts of myself. This is the exact truth Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10, where God tells him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul goes on to say, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

That’s what grace is. It’s allowing yourself to be seen in all your weakness, trusting that God’s love is bigger than your biggest flaws. If you go around pretending to be strong and not allow anyone to see those bad, unlovable parts of yourself, you’ll never know what it truly feels like to be fully known and fully loved. God loves you deeply, but if you won’t receive the gift of grace that he longs to give you, you’ll continue to live behind walls that keep out the very love and healing you need. God knows all the weaknesses that you try to hide, but he died for those weaknesses so that you’ll experience the unconditional love that heals.

Don’t put all your hope in things or people because they will eventually let you down. We are all broken people. The type of hope and love you long for should be reserved for God alone. And you can’t truly love yourself or other people if you misplace your affections and expect others to give you what only God can give. As 1 John 4:19 reminds us, “We love because he first loved us.” Our capacity to give healthy, unconditional love flows entirely from receiving God’s love first. It’s cruel to others to expect them to give you something they can’t give. Only God can give that to you.

Stop expecting broken people to fix a broken heart—only God can do that. Lower your guard, let His grace in, and step out into the full, unconditional love He’s been offering all along.