God Loves Me

I’m not quite sure where to start to explain this to you. Learning to know God loves you is a process for most people. Most do not just learn from the time they are a child that God loves them.

A few select may learn, but many come to the realization through years of turmoil. We are called to love others the way God love us. However, until we know that love deep within, that is a struggle.

12 years ago, even just 2 years ago I would have said God didn’t love me the way He loves other people. I thought He loved them more than me because of what I have endured in life.

I truly thought that no loving God would allow such evil in this world he alone created. How can He sit back and watch His children get hurt?

The answer didn’t come right away and it didn’t come easily. It started with a simple prayer of “God, please show me how You love me.” Then, it was in searching to see Him show me that love. I looked at how I’ve been treated by people.

A family that hurt me and didn’t stand by me when I needed help the most. Christian friends who deserted me when my life road became so rocky I was constantly falling. Therapists I sought for help who told me to “get over it and move on with life”.

I began to look around me and truly take in how I was treated, especially by men. There was one who constantly showed me caring and compassion. My therapist. At first, I thought, this is just his job. Then, I realized I had other therapists who were not very nice to me and didn’t show compassion.

I began to watch how he treated me when I cried, expressed anger, or needed a listening ear. He listened, guided and treated me like I never knew I was worthy of. He talks often of his relationship with Jesus. I began to think that if this man, who is sinful just like all of us, can treat me with this respect and compassion how much more can God?

For years I had attempted to read books about God’s love. Then, I finally searched the one book that truly had the answers. The living, breathing Word of God. I read about Jesus’ life in the book of John. I took in how Jesus treated people. I prayed to hear Jesus as He would speak and not how our world or abusers talk.

I read about Jesus and the woman at the well in John chapter 4. There was a Samaritan woman, who was known to be living in sin, and she was outside in a public space.

Under these circumstances a Jewish man would not speak to her. However, Jesus (a Jewish man) didn’t hesitate and treated her with respect. He shared the way to living life with her. There was never any condemnation about how she had lived.

Slowly, day after day, I began to see Jesus as the loving God He is to everyone. I can’t truly explain the change inside of me, but it was similar to a well filling up. The more I listened to God, asked to see His love, and read about Him in the Word, the more my heart filled with his love for me.

I began to realize that God loved me unconditionally. Nothing I do or don’t do changes that love. Wow, in a world where most base what we do with how we are treated that was an eye opener.

God loves each of us and wants the best for us. He does allow all men to have free will. Those who chose evil instead of the path God wants for us, sin. People have sinned against us and caused us deep pain because of their choices to not follow God.

For us, what God meant for good in marriage between a man and wife, was abused by people who hurt us to be used for what they desired at that moment. God doesn’t like that at all. He will however, use the circumstances to teach us more about Him and draw us in a closer relationship with Himself.

That is ultimately what I am learning on this journey of recovery. God loves me no matter what. Nothing changes that fact. A fact, remember, can’t be disputed, it is proven to be true.

So, God loves you. I wish me saying that would be all it takes for you to understand it. Just know that as you journey to come to that knowledge that God is holding you close and wants you to understand how deeply He does love you. I sincerely pray each of you comes to that knowledge one day. If not here on earth, then when we enter heaven I believe we will all be swept away with how powerful God’s love is. Hold onto that today, my friends.

© 2020 Susan M. Clabaugh. All Rights Reserved.