In Love

The phrase "I love you" is not one that I ever really thought about.  I say it to family before ending a phone call, I sometimes see/hear couples saying it to each other. I'd never been romantically in love before so I'd never actually said it apart from being a sign-off phrase.  

About a month ago, I finally worked up the nerve to tell my boyfriend that I loved him.  I'd been hemming and hawing over it for almost a month after he professed his unrequited love for me.  Having never been in love before, and having been slightly jaded by movies vs real relationships visual definitions of this concept, it really took a lot of thought and processing to figure out if what I was feeling was love, or if it was still infatuation.

I am now very well-versed in these three words.  Apart from sign off language, there are sometimes I just look over at my boyfriend and become overwhelmed with a feeling of appreciation of how he loves me and a compulsion to tell him that I love him. A year ago, I would be judging someone for making a statement of that caliber of cheesy, but if you've ever been in love, you know what I mean.  Sometimes you can't help it.  It just floods you and you have to do something about it.

Last week I was praying, and I told God that I loved him.  While that sounds like a standard thing to say, I realized that I did not remember the last time I told God that I loved him apart from a worship song sing-along. I could not remember the last time I looked into the eyes of my Lord and told him how madly in love I was with him.  Even though He tells me every day.

I've always understood the "God is my Father" aspect.  I fear him, try to obey him, know that he loves me and I know that he has my best interest at heart which means he sometimes has to discipline me.  I know I can go to him for advice or counsel, or to be held when I am broken.  The other aspect of God's love, the divine romance, I never really grasped before.

Being in a dating relationship has helped me draw several parallel understandings of God's love for me.  I realize that despite my doubts, insecurities, selfishness, and just plain craziness, God has never stopped pursuing me.  He loved me from Day1 and has consistently fought for my heart.  I realize He woos me with romantic gestures almost daily; he paints a sunset, or gives me a field of flowers, and whispers confident affirmation in my ear that I am wonderfully and fearfully made, that he loves me and has great plans to prosper me.  He died for me so that we could be together for eternity.

I realize now that God and I have had somewhat of a complacent marriage.  We've had our ups and downs.  We had our honey moon stage in my child hood, the "I want a divorce" stage in my teens, the "I am so completely in love with you again" stage in late high school, the "you're great- but your kids are super obnoxious" phase in college, and finally are entering the "you are truly all that I want, need, desire because I am so incredibly in love with you" phase, which I must say is my favorite yet.

Despite anything that I have ever done to wrong him, or to wrong his children, he continues to forgive me and desires to put me in his robe of righteousness.  From the very beginning when he created earth and sky and water and everything I would need to survive, to when he knit me thoughtfully in my mothers womb, through every laugh and tear and heartbreak, He has loved me.  That verse, "We love because He first loved us" finally makes sense.  Sometimes, when you realize how much you are loved, it overwhelms you to a point that you are compelled to love back.

If you are a believer- tell God you love him.  And then show him through your actions and words. End complacency in your relationship and strive for complete intimacy.

If you are not a believer- please hear me when I tell you that you are so incredibly loved by God, and he is desperate to have a relationship with you.  Take some time to explore Gods love for you, and once you begin to understand just how high and deep and long and wide his love is for you, you will have no choice but to love him back.

God's love is incomparable.  Truly, there is nothing like it, and nothing I could ever desire more.