Changed By An Encounter With Unconditional Love

I found a “man of God” to love me. Even though I was tainted by childhood abuse, he told me that my lack of virginity was not an issue to him. He told me that he loved me anyway.

When he asked me to marry him my heart leap within me to know I was wanted. I made plans to marry him, to spend the rest of my life with him. It didn't occur to me that this might not be God's will for my life. I found someone who would love me and this was what I wanted.

So I did far more to please him then I should have. I listened to his logic as to why we should do things I felt were wrong. I listened to his voice, instead of the voice of God. I found myself compromising in ways I should never have. But I knew that God did not allow fornication so I refused to compromise on that matter.

This man who I thought would become my world told me that if I really loved him I'd have sex with him. When I refused, he took what he wanted by force. My world came crashing down. Any hope of ever finding love crumbled that day.

I did not understand that the blood of Christ was for my sins, past, present and future. I could not understand that the beating he took in His body could heal my mistakes, and my broken pain.

So like Adam and Eve in the garden I hid from God. I knew that it was me who was to blame. Because I should have never been so naive to think anyone could really love me without expecting something in return.

I hardened my heart to any hope of ever receiving God's love after this. I spent half a year running as hard as I could away from God. But the more I ran the more God called to me. God shows me His unfailing love for me. Though I was undeserving of His love, though I ran the other way, He never stopped calling to me. 

One day I was asked to help serve at youth camp even though I had not been to that church in 6 months I agreed to go. I don't know why, even all these years later I don't really know why I said yes. Much like the night I knelled at the alter, I was compelled to do so... without any understanding of my actions. Even though the church asked me to come back it did not to me mean that God wanted me back. I came back into the community of faith, bodily, but my heart was torn, and dry and hard. In those five years I had never once felt the love of God. Though He wooed me, though He compelled me ever more into His presence, the feelings never came.

So what do you do with a head filled with the love of God and a heart of stone, for fear of feeling anything real? Humanity, can do nothing with such a person.

What did I do with that life? I begged to be released from it. I did every conceivable thing to end it without relinquishing control of my own faculties, until I finally came to the end of myself.

When that didn't work, I tried yet again in vain to earn my way into the favor of God. I already practically lived at the church, served in every conceivable way possible so the next logical step was to go to Bible college and become a minister.

How scary when I see it there on the page. That without God's unfailing love I could have stayed there. I could have lived my whole life long serving in church, living under the law of God, and never knowing the God whom I was serving. I shutter to thing of how much damage I would have done had not God pressed me against the walls I'd built.

He pressed me when my mother died. He pressed me against the wall of my self preservation and I grew angry at God for His love to me. I could not see it for the love it was. I only knew that this was pain, such deep pain I had never felt before, I had for so long ignored all manner of emotion.

In time I found a man I would love. A man who would love me too. But our lives were full of broken love, false love, conditional love. We cut each other deeply over the following years. With no anchor to hold to I often wonder how we survived those first five years of marriage.

I nearly didn't survive. One day, after my second son was born and before my third, I finally and wholeheartedly chose to agree with the lifetime of lies I had been given that this world would be better off without me. It was not the first time I believed the lies, but I had determined in my mind that it would be the last time.

I stood looking in the bathroom mirror stilling my nerves for the plan that I had made to end my life that night. I had tried too long to gain God's love, I was too tired to try any longer. I knew that I would be able to slip out of the house, after my husband got home from work. I did not want my husband or one of my children to be the one to find my body so I planned to leave this world alone away from them.

My husband spoiled my perfect plan. I was so used to him going back on his promises that I had put it out of my mind that he had agreed a week or two before to go to a Bible study with me that night. I knew it was not something he wanted to do, so when he came home and told me we would be going it took me off guard.

When we arrived I found out that it wasn't a Bible study at all, it was a prayer meeting. I sat in Steve and Pam's living room listening to a group of Christian men and women praying for one another. I watched them as they poured out love one for another. I was astonished at the way they cared for one another, and at their unwavering belief in God's love for them. I must say that it shook me. Fifteen years in church, and it shocked me to see such love. It makes me cry even now to think of how dimly I saw, that I could live fifteen years in the shadow of the steeple and not know love.

That night they wanted to pray for me. I remember saying something to the effect that, I'd tried it all before and it was of no consequence. You see, I knew, even if they didn't, that God didn't really love me. How could He, if He is an all knowing God, then there was no way He could really love me, because no one who really knew me could possibly love me. Well, I really didn't have anything to lose except a few minutes of my time, so I let them pray for me. I didn't expect anything to come of it.

As they began to pray I found myself in another place, in another time. One moment they were standing around me praying for me. I could hear the sound of melodies floating in the air, and resting in the moment. I could hear their voices all together asking God to come down and show me His reality. I could feel the cool air coming in from the conditioner. I could feel the darkness of night overtaking the room as the sun set outside. I could smell the mix of perfumes and candles burning in the room. And I remember thinking, can we get done with this already, I have plans for death in the coming hours. And I was quite content with that plan.

A moment later I was no longer sitting in a metal folding chair in Missouri but standing in an angry crowd of people with the sound of an unfamiliar language filling my ears. The smell of unwashed humanity and the sweet sent of blood filled my nostrils and I felt nauseous at the sent of it.

My eyes took a moment to adjust and I was unsure as to what was happening. I was standing in the shadow of something. There was a dark silhouette against my body. And then I felt a warm drop of liquid on my face. As my eyes adjusted to this sudden difference in darkness to light, I saw that I was standing at the foot of the cross of Jesus.

I saw love. I saw unconditional love for the first time, with complete clarity. I felt the depth of His love for me in a way that I had never felt anything before. I reached up and touched my cheek where the liquid had touched my skin and pulled my hand from my face and it was the deepest red I have ever seen. I looked into His eyes and I saw love, from before the beginning of all time extending past it's end.

I thought this is where I need to be, I will stay here forever. But as soon as the thoughts formed in my mind I felt the cold metal chair beneath my legs. I heard the voices of familiar people speaking a familiar language. I heard the sound of Kathrine Scott singing At The Foot of The Cross. And I found myself forever changed. Changed by an encounter with the love of God, in a way I can never fully understand.

I want to know the love of God. I want to experience God's love, this is God's love, that even in my darkest hour He would call to me. I have looked, I have searched this world. There is no place on this sphere that can hold that kind of love. There is no experience, there is no person which can compare to His love.

It is no wonder I am not satisfied with any other love. The only place I can begin to find such abiding, unending, unconditional love, is at the feet of Christ.

I want to know His love anew today. I want to experience fresh His mercies for me. He has shown me so many blessings, how can I not wish to spend my life abandoned to Him.

How can I not relinquish control? How can I not give Him rule and reign in every single piece of my life? It is the very least I can do.