God loves ME

We've all seen the bumper sticker, "Smile! God loves you!" and if we didn't key the car as we walked by, then I think we should get a few extra points for that. That surface flippancy always repelled me, ever since someone told my thirteen year old self that "everything happens for a reason" when my 11-year-old brother died. 

So now I'm about half way (hopefully) through this meandering path we call life and I feel like I am just learning that God loves me. I mean, I know He loves US collectively, I know He loves YOU, but I didn't ever really believe that He loves me. Just me. 

This year, ever since February, this verse keeps popping up, over and over and over. 

My friend asked me lately, "How do you know when it's God talking to you?"

And I don't know for you but for me, there are two ways that I know: 

1. Because it's never something I would choose. That doesn't mean I hate it, it just means I am so sure it didn't come from me. My voice says things like, "Eat that. Close the door. Buy that. Take a nap." God's voice says things like, "Stop and listen. Go vaccuum your house. Send that money you're holding to so-and-so instead of to Amazon. Get up and unload the dishwasher. Hug your child. Call so-and-so and tell them you're doing _____" 

Usually it's absolutely NOT what I was planning, not something I want to do, and often it doesn't really seem like it makes sense. 

and then 2. He repeats Himself. A lot. I'm not the brightest at paying attention or obeying so usually God has to tell me things over and over...

So back to this verse. It just kept showing up. In a book on grief. In a ladies' Bible study on a different chapter. In my personal reading. In the Sunday School curriculum as a key verse. In a reading app. Finally I was like, okay God. I get it. This verse is for me. So.... what?

The last two years I've been really TRYING (and not just other people's patience). I've been learning and setting goals and working hard and doing all the things and listening to the podcasts and then... God. 

He's slowly replacing trying with letting go. Letting go of my idea that I can fix things. I've been handing my struggles to Him. HE is the mighty warrior, not me. Not in one go. In little chunks, every day. 

He's been replacing striving with joy. With gladness. With presence. 

He's been replacing my yapping with quietness. Stillness. Peace. Not always, but slowly and surely, more and more.

But that last one? That God would rejoice over ME? Individual ME? With SINGING?

I think I understand it in my head but I don't believe it. I haven't accepted it. It doesn't feel comfortable to me. 

This last two weeks, I got to spend time outside in complete and utter beauty (and a lot of panting and sweating). One morning we were starting our hike and I just kept looking around the meadow we were in and all I could hear was "I love you. I love you. I love you." And all my heart and brain and body could feel was, "God loves ME." 

Yes Jesus loves me. And I just spent that whole day, completely inside that awareness of love. It might sound airy-fairy or like some weird altitude sickness but I feel like God was singing over me. And I just got to be there and marvel and take it in and be part of it. That deep gut knowing hasn't left. It's always been true. I just believe it now. Or as our friend Lindiwe would say, I agree with it. 

And I think what I am saying is that if you aren't sure about this God and this Jesus, I dare you to challenge Him to show you who He is and you might just start finding out who you are in Him. 

And it's better than you hoped. God loves ME, me personally, and He loves you too, not in a bumper sticker kind of way. In a bigger than mountains and smaller than flowers, in sore feet and sweaty foreheads, all encompassing love that nothing can take away. 

And I kind of get why Paul's prayer to all the messed up Jesus followers who were in Ephesus was: 

That's the kind of love we can LIVE IN. Not just me and not just on a mountain, but all of us, every day.

On the way home, I had a little extra time due to Air Canada's thoughtfulness, so I started reading Richard Rohr's Breathing Under Water, in which he goes through the Twelve Steps from Alcoholics Anonymous and relates them to Jesus' teachings. As someone who has always found a way to stuff the hurt and the feelings (with food, with recognition, with relationships, with alcohol... choose your "numb"er really), his words hit home in every chapter but especially this:

My whole life, there has always been a guarded room to retreat to. It's gotten me through losing my brother and witnessing my family's grief, through living in a foreign country at 17, and all the small and large fears since. This last two years, those walls have been falling. It hasn't been easy and it sure hasn't been perfect, but I feel like God is renewing my mind (replacing lies with truth) and my heart and yet, there has been this physical part of me that can't let go of some safe corner of isolation I've always clung to.

And when God told me He loved me and I believed Him, it felt like a tightly squeezed fist unlocked in my chest. It felt like I sat down at home instead of shuffling my feet in the corner of a party I wasn't sure I should be at. I'm home, here and there, and everywhere, with Him.

So I don't really know what my point is or why I'm writing this down at all. In fact, most of the things God's been teaching me have been communicated in community with the people I love and not shared publicly at all, but I guess I just want this here, as a permanent reminder, to me and maybe you, that if you feel that little longing bit of hope sometimes that maybe there is more out there for you, that's Jesus. That's the God who never forces but always offers an invitation to peace. To fullness. To actual satisfaction. And to joy and celebration. I dare you to accept the invitation. You can sit with me.