Loving Without Condition

It’s amazing how quickly our minds fill in the blanks in relationships.

We create stories—quietly and automatically—about how people should respond, what they should understand, how they should show up. And before we know it, we’re no longer engaging with the real person. We’re interacting with our expectations of them.

These assumptions sneak into everything.

In marriage, we might expect our spouse to know what we need without having to say it.
In friendships, we want others to reciprocate exactly the way we would.
Even in our relationship with God, we come with a script—hoping or expecting Him to move in very specific ways.

But real connection doesn’t work that way.

It begins when we release the pressure we place on others to meet our silent standards.

When we stop trying to make people fit into our relational mold and instead experience them as they truly are.

This week, I’m paying attention to the stories I’m telling myself. The assumptions that creep into conversations. The subtle ways I try to script how others should love, respond, or care for me.

What would shift if we traded assumptions for curiosity?

What if we offered grace instead of silent judgment?

Because here’s the truth: People aren’t projects. They’re souls. And sometimes the most healing thing we can do—for ourselves and for others—is to stop asking them to be something they’re not, and simply be present with who they are.

Connection deepens when expectations fall away. That’s where the real love lives.