I don’t remember if anyone told me as a kid that God loved me. I’m pretty sure that I must have at least heard references to it since I went to a Catholic grade school. There aren’t a whole lot of memory references to that time period. As a teen, if someone would have said this, I probably would have looked behind me to see who they were talking to. It would have been hard to believe.
In my mid-teens, I thought that if there was a God, I was on a one-way trip to hell with no other options. While high, I’d probably make some ridiculous comment about all the parties that I was going to find there. I often tried to tell myself that there was no God until I needed him and there was no one else to help me.
That was really my whole life. I needed him, I just didn’t know it. In pain, foster homes, other facilities, and legal trouble the need grew and became inescapable. As the misery grew so did God’s attempts to reach me, but I wanted to do what I wanted to do. When he made it clear to me that I needed salvation, I wanted it, but I also wanted to continue living as I was without apposing rule.
So the misery continued to grow because my choices caused it to grow. Then one night, in the middle of my sin, he came to me in a dream. I was terrified. Fear seemed to grip every move I made toward him. God kept telling me that it was okay. He wanted me to trust him.
The voice wasn’t audible, but a quiet voice in my heart. When I finally reached up and touched the tip of his finger, light and love flooded in and consumed me. I had never experienced anything like this. I woke up crying one of those all-out deep cries. I had never known or even imagined such love in my life. And this was while I was still in the midst of sin. How was this possible? How could he love me? I had read the red letters of a bible that had been left in a house that we rented. I knew that he desired holiness, and I knew that was not what I was living.
He does desire holiness. He’s also made provision for us. God knew that we could not do it on our own. He didn’t send Christ just as a get-out-of-jail-free card. He desires relationship. He desires intimacy with you and me, and he made a way for that to be possible.
Often, I have looked at the places where I was not enough. Maybe I didn’t know enough, didn’t speak well enough, or I didn’t do this or that good enough. We can never do everything perfectly, but that’s okay. This is where grace comes in.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” (Jer.31:3 NIV)
If you haven’t heard it lately or maybe at all, God loves you. You are precious in his sight, right now today, where you are, as you are.
(The photo above is of a kintsugi pot from upsplash.com)
Melicia Evans 