of the responsibilities of the church
is to be on the alert for those people who in later life need the love
and reassurance they should have had when they were younger.
Unfortunately, however, many of us are embarrassed when we are
confronted by emotionally needy persons. We may resent their need and
the demand which it makes on us, with the result that they may never
know the love of man and God, and may never be brought to the point
where they may participate in the life and work of Christ which is, as
we have seen, to love.

Of course, it is not easy to love, especially when we feel unequal to
it, are tempted to regress, and want to be loved and cuddled ourselves.
Yet even then the answer to our need is to love. Many of us have had
experiences that have borne out this truth. Once when my son and I had
had a quarrel in which I had lost my temper, and was feeling discouraged
as a father and not at all competent where human relations were
concerned, the phone rang and a young couple asked if they might come
and talk with me about the difficulty they were having with their young
son. Because of my feelings of wretched inadequacy, my inclination was
to say "No," but they were so obviously in need of help and so
importunate that I arranged for them to come to see me immediately. I
had no confidence in being able to help them, but I did try to listen to
them. As I listened, I participated in their thinking about their own
situation. When the session was over, they thanked me enthusiastically
for my help. After they were gone, I realised that however much I had
helped them, I myself had been helped. By accepting my responsibilities
as a counselor and by listening to them, I was loving them; and because
I loved them, I had the experience of being loved. The relationship in
which our love is needed may offer little apparent encouragement, but
once we give ourselves, the resources for the work of love become
available.

It is, therefore, as important for us to love as it is for us to be
loved, and our need to love is as great as the need to be loved. If we
are not able to love, life is as deficient as it would have been if we
had not been loved. We must not assume that because we have been loved
we shall automatically become a person who loves. Human beings do not
develop that automatically. Certainly the experience of being loved
prepares us to love, but we can misuse the gifts of love. We may decide
to appropriate them fo