“Can I talk to you?” she whispered, as she pushed her wheel chair close to me.
“Of course.”
“But I still don’t understand why He should love me.”
“You mean, why God should love you?” I clarified.
“Yea. Even after everything I did, I’m still doing bad things. Like throwing up and cutting myself.”
Her confession came an hour after she first disclosed to me and Bianca the news of what she had done to herself. Barely fifteen, she had jumped from a high concrete ledge to the pavement. Once like me, she had wanted to end it all, and tried.
Praying for wisdom, I gave my best attempt to share what is sometimes so hard to understand myself. How God’s love for us is not like the love we grant each other and the love we receive from those we hold most dear. Our love is a love that falls short. God’s love is set apart – a divine, sacrificial, grace-filled, uncompromising and unrelenting love. It doesn’t make sense that He should have affections for us when we mess up and fall down, but yet He does.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:38-39
Does God’s love ever seem irrational to you? What “heart blocks” are standing in the way of believing and receiving the ultimate love that sets captives free and heals the brokenhearted?
-Allie Marie Smith
