Celebration of love

I may be single, and looking forward to a girl's night out this evening, but just because I don’t have romantic love in my life doesn’t mean I don’t have cause to celebrate!

When I stop to think about it I am awed by God’s love for me. It’s perfect, it’s precious, and it blows my mind.

I’ve said often that one of the first songs I ever learned was probably “Jesus loves me.” I remember teaching children in many Sunday school classes that truth myself. But it has only been in the past few years that the truth of it has come alive to me.

In a time of brokenness I began to question God about whether or not He cared when I was hurting, whether or not He could feel my pain. I thought of His love being impersonal (meant for the whole world after all), and of Him dryly telling me it was all for the best. I was cynical, but those questions opened up a door for me to consider the possibility that God offered what I hungered for.

And so began a journey into His love. Printed off and framed, sitting on my desk are the following verses which have summed up this leg of the journey:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father… that He would grant you,
according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His
Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know
the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to the
fullness of God.”

To be filled up to the fullness of God means to know His love. That’s my journey right now, and probably for my life. Sometimes He gives it to me directly, but most often He offers it through friends, family members, and sometimes even strangers. It was always there, but He has renewed my eyes to show me the source.

Underneath all the “proper” theology I held, I used to compare what I felt God’s love for me to be, with the purest love I had experienced from others, or given. God’s love seemed so dry and sterile in comparison. Now I see, that real love always has God as it’s source… whether the giver or the receiver ever realize it.

And today, I just want to say how thankful I am to have received that love from my God, my Abba, my Husband, my Protector and my Strength. I’m also thankful for His love as I have received it through countless friends, family members, and others.

So, thanks, and Happy Valentine's day!