Oh, how He loves you and me, Oh how He loves you and me. He gave his life, what more could he give?
Oh, how He loves you; Oh, how he loves me; Oh, how he loves you and me.
We sang this song often in the church my ex husband pastored but no matter how much we sung it I never could quite believe that Almighty God could love someone like me.
I was the kid from the home with the divorced mother and all the different stepfathers. Of which none loved me nor I loved them. My natural father said he loved me but I only saw him one weekend a month because of his fireman’s schedule. So not much time to study a father’s love.
My mother said she loved me but she worked a lot to support us and she was always trying to find a husband. I also felt that her love was conditional. I know she didn’t mean it that way but that is how it came across. When I made honor roll she was very proud and told everyone how smart I was. When I made the gymnastic team, proud mother, but when I fell off the balance beam, disappointed Mom.
Then there was the church we attended with my grandmother….a small United Pentecostal Church, if there was any love there for me it only came from one sweet family who had 7 children of their own but had lots of love to go around. I loved staying at their house and feeling the warmth of that love. My mother didn’t attend the church so no tithes from me so I was basically ignored by the pastor.
The feeling of failures followed me into adulthood and into my marriage. It felt like nothing I did was ever good enough and I just never measured up to everybody’s expectations. During this time my husband pastored a church and I just wasn’t what he wanted as a helpmate and a total disappointment to him as a pastor’s wife (I couldn’t play the piano or sing very good). So he soon jumped ship with another woman and moved away. Again love was conditional upon my performance.
It seemed I excelled at three things, being a mother and grandmother and being an an excellent employee and as it turned out I was very smart and a quick study. I managed to go back to college and to everyone’s amazement I graduated with a 3.95 GPA in accounting and I worked as a tax accountant for the next 15 years. It was a good place to work and it was someplace I felt where I belonged.
All of us have the need to belong and we long to be loved. Our Heavenly Father wants us to know we are loved.
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” I John 3:1
God loves us! God the father is a thousand times better than any earthly father. We are valuable because God loves us. We know our status and we are valuable because God loves us.
“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. I John 3:2
God’s love is changing us gradually to be more like him.
“Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”
God’s outworking love doing a work in me by bringing me to a good and healthy church where love abounds! I’ve never experienced this type of love in a church before but I do now! I work in ministry on many projects for the church and I truly believe when told I’m loved that it is the truth. Because I can feel it and see it and there are no conditions. They don’t care that I have Parkinson’s disease and work slower, or that I’m a bit overweight, I haven’t been given one diet to try like I was before. I am loved…”By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” I John 3:9-10, 16-17
Our Heavenly Father wants us to KNOW that he loves us and we are his children. He gives us a family, a purpose and a hope for a future.
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