The Love I Never Knew Could Exist

I let go of the mic stand and lift my arms up to reach for Him, to breathe Him in.

The stage lights pierce my vision, but I don’t mind. All I’m thinking about is this moment. I want to bottle it up and carry it with me everywhere I go.

The crowd sings in beautiful harmony, only adding to my joy. This is what it means to be loved, to belong, I think to myself.

I’ve experienced love in many forms during my 20 years of life. There is the love of a friend, sister, family members, mentors, teammates, and the more obvious, boyfriend. These relationships run from shallow to deep, in that no love is felt in the same fashion. The way I love Alex is incomparable to the way I love my sister. That doesn’t make one love better than the other, it’s just a different feeling.

Similarly, an “I love you” valentine from the fifth grade shows little resemblance to the “I love you,” verbal confirmation I get from Alex every day.

But no love I’ve experienced could have ever prepared me for the love I’ve received in Christ.

You may have heard the song “Indescribable” by Chris Tomlin. Although I like to avoid cliche, I can’t think of a better word to convey the way God’s love felt as I sang on our church’s stage yesterday. It’s the joy I feel when I wake up every morning. It’s a love I never knew could exist, never thought I could experience.

God’s love surpasses our circumstances. It doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t ask us for anything in return. There is nothing we can do to earn it. It just is.

In a world where “love” is thrown around as if to describe a casual feeling, it can be hard to understand, believe in or even accept God’s love. We often feel unworthy, unlovable, or even unwilling to open our hearts to it.

We must realize that our love can never mirror His. None can love as He loves us — no love we experience is greater than the love we can receive in Him. Valentine’s day is just two weeks away. I think it’s time we let God be our Valentine. His arms are reaching out to us, and he will wait for us … whatever it takes.

Hold on to that truth throughout this new week and have a blessed Monday.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Romans 8:38-39