When did you realize that God loved you?
Not his children, not the Israelites, not his people, but you. All by yourself. Personally.
I was asked this question earlier this year, and I realized, after some thought, that I had a definitive answer. However, my answer was not, "at the age of 18 when I remember lying face first before a cross at a high school youth retreat when I gave my life to Christ." While that night changed my eternal residency, it wouldn't be until 6 years into my walk with Christ that I believed, not only in my head but in my heart, that God loved me personally. But we'll get to that later.
I bring up this question because it is important for believers and nonbelievers alike to consider whether our heart knowledge of the Lord matches our head knowledge. As believers, we can go through the motions with a sound theology but are drowning internally due to a lack of personal relationship with our creator. Frustration and discouragement build, because no matter how many times we remind ourselves of the scriptures, our heart can't quite make the connection that brings us that indescribable peace that transcends understanding. And as unbelievers, I remember how I simply could not wrap my mind around the concept that not only could someone so holy and majestic care for someone like me... but that I could actually stand out in a crowd to such a King. I found myself in the former state; discontent, unsatisfied, and unconvinced that I meant any more than just another number in a collective body of God's "chosen". But he would go far enough lengths to prove to me this was not the case.
As believers, we can go through the motions
with a sound theology but are drowning internally
due to a lack of personal relationship with our creator.
In my college years, I saw God move on my behalf in a way that could only make a shred of sense to Him and I. I had always believed in God, but it wasn't until college that I really took hold of developing my own relationship with Christ. I joined a women's Christian organization on campus at Texas A&M, and what was an ember grew into a flame. I hungered to know more about God and what it meant for me personally. At that point, I knew that God loved me, but my heart wasn't quite convinced of the deep, personal lengths his love went to. I knew God was pleased with seeing a group of his daughters in college proclaiming his name, but I was still just a number in that crowd of women. But God knew this internal struggle I warred with each day and pursued me with intention.
You see, at the time, I was in a seriously committed relationship of two years. Two years of our families coming to know and love one another. Two years of coming into adulthood together. Two years of picture perfect "relationship goals" our friends doted over.
It was also, to everyone's eventual shock, two years of anguish, torment, and abuse.
It's sinister, really, how patterns of abuse will form and take root. So sly, so little by little that in microdoses, it doesn't seem like much, until those microdoses pile up on top of one another into the foundation of what you would call "normal". But it isn't normal, that's just what you tell yourself when you don't want to admit what is really happening because if you do, you realize it is up to you to change the dynamic. And, in those situations, that sometimes is simply impossible. I had been so naive, so arrogant to think, "I would never allow myself to be put in that kind of situation. I have too much respect for myself." And yet, here I was. Crying myself to sleep every night begging God to just take me. To be so merciful to take me in my sleep so that I could wake up with him, because I couldn't stomach waking up to enduring another day of where I was. And obviously, in his lovingkindness, God didn't answer my prayer. But what he did do... oh, what he did do. Ultimately, there was a night of events that transpired between my at the time partner, my brother, and a close group of our friends for which I was not present. The next day, this group of people who loved me so hard and so well, sat me down and shared what happened, and that swung the door wide open for me to share what had been taking place between us. It gave me an out without having to lift a finger. I walked into that room bound and left that room with my brother to go pack up my things freer than I had felt in too long. There is a reason I can't even write this story nearly 6 years later with being overcome with emotion, and that is because I do and always will believe that the Lord orchestrated those events to fall in line just as they did.
It has taken time of healing and healthy reflection to see this for what it was: a loving dad who intervened for his daughter when he knew she couldn't handle it by herself. Now this is in no way an insult to my earthly dad, who has been my greatest support for so long, and who I know would have been, again, if people only knew. But God knew what others didn't, and he also knew my heart. He knew that I was stuck in a situation that I was not going to take myself out of. And so, he bursted in, grabbed me by the hand, turned around, and walked me straight out, as plain as that. THAT was when I believed God loved me, Heather. He is the sovereign creator of the universe, who holds all things in his hand, under his ultimate rule, and he took the time to get me out of an unhealthy relationship? Yes, because he knit me together in the womb, intricately, perfectly to his liking, and he would leave the 99 for me, the 1. 2 Timothy 3: 16-17 tells us that, "all scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness..." This "all" is important, because that means God chose which words he felt were important enough to leave in his living word to be passed down through generations, ultimately to you and I. And in the insurmountable number of choices he had, he chose to remind us that he formed us in the womb, that he created us individually. He wanted to make sure we understood and never forgot that personal delight he takes in each of us. And in my case, the personal lengths he will go to take care of me, and of you.
When you look back on your experiences, from the most treacherous valley to the most majestic peak, replay those experiences in your mind, but with the idea that God was a part of it all along. Even as nonbeliever, humor me. We could so much better believe in God's personal love for us if we just gave him the credit in our lives. Nothing is a surprise or goes unacknowledged by God. He is sovereign overall. So, when we look at each individual moment that led us to where we are today, and we see His hand in it all, it forms this surreal kaleidoscope of orchestrated love for us. When I dismiss the idea of luck, or my own power and means, and let God take the throne over every moment of my life, how can I not see that he has kept a close eye on me and my circumstances from the moment I was conceived? And yes, in the darkest of moments too, I see that God has worked it together for some good, even if the only good is that I survived the turmoil and now have the ability to say, "Praise God for getting me through that because I couldn't have done it myself". That culmination of events, of care, displays nothing else other than a deeply rooted, personal, individual love.
We could much more easily believe in God's personal love for us
if we just gave Him the credit in our lives.
I will confess, it has taken me 6 years to share this story with anyone besides my husband. And just at the start of this new year, I resolved that it was time to tell it, along with so many other experiences I have yet to share. It has been, I wouldn't say easy, but uncomplicated is a better word. It has been uncomplicated to write for the sake of motivation, to share my thoughts as God is teaching me through daily life. But the majority of our reality is far from uncomplicated, and I feel convicted to step up. Step up in the sense that when I look back through a spiritual filter, I see just how intimately and actively God has been at work in my life, and some of the most powerful testimony to his glory is in the gloomy, dark, and ugly things I don't want to share. But it is time to be bold for his glory, because I don't have the right to dictate what parts of the Lord I share with people for the sake of my own pride or shame. If the Lord got glory from it in my eyes, those are the stories that need to be told to others. The glory has been, and always will be, his. We are simply the avenues through which his glory is revealed. How much glory are we withholding from the Lord and clutching to because we don't want others to know the sin we struggled through that He delivered us from? And even further, how many others are we depriving of a glimpse of God's power and love when we choose not to share these things? Somebody who might desperately need to hear, "you're not the only one (or even Christian) who has went to war through this." It is critical at this time that we, as Christians, and as Christian women, share what we have hid for the sake of keeping up appearances. God deserves so much more from us, from me.
All in all, I encourage you, look back and reflect. Not on this year alone, but every year. Each memory, each moment of joy, sorrow, strength, pain, peace, and look closer to see God. Ask Him to show you where his hand was, because he is a holy and jealous God who yearns for your heart and refuses to share the glory, and he will open your eyes. He has been fighting for you this entire time, even when you were questioning and doubting Him. He was fighting still. When you were begging for a way out, he was begging you, please just stick with me a little while longer, I'm still here. That isn't communal love, that is deep and hard and personal love with his hand outstretched only for you in the midst of only your circumstances. And it's a hand that so many others are longing to grasp as well, if someone would just help show them that they could.
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