In the later stages of addiction, one no longer takes the drug to get high, but to feel "normal"; not to withdraw. Love being one of the more common drugs, we can often observe this principle fairly clearly in relationships.
The sweet words, affectionate carresses, kind gestures, and warm attentions -- these all become background noise for a time, until, spurned and neglected, they are withdrawn; and then it is we who begin to withdraw, as addicts do. Only then do we feel what they meant to us. And when we reclaim them, if ever we do, it is with a new appreciation, which even extends backwards to what has gone before, as if to settle the old debts.
This cycle is played out innumerable times in personal relationships before it is translated entirely into the spiritual realm, where, even then, it continues for some time before the soul can be carved into an easy channel for love; before one can learn to hold it and let it go, like water through a cleft, or sunlight between fingers.
God, too, gives more love than we can appreciate, or appraise, yet His love is never withdrawn; it only appears so to us, for we have neglected it so long, and forgotten how to weigh it; like men who trade gold and silver as though it were iron and tin, wondering all the time where the precious metals have gone.
If we saw, just once, the real value of love, we would see that it is all around; for it would never leave our thoughts, but would send roots into the deepest and hardest soil of our hearts, until it produced an abundance of leaves, flowers, and fruits inside and all around us.
We do not see that the very sunlight which pours through our hands is pure gold, and the very idea of love is love freely given.
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