If you could go through the lowest moment of your life again, would you? I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately and, depending on the day, sometimes my answer changes. Whether it was a season of depression, a bad breakup, an injury, or even a loss of a loved one, we all have some sort of moment that we deem as one of the hardest times of our lives.
For me, it was a break up. Many people have had their heartbroken at least once -- and to put it bluntly, it sucks. When you love someone but they don’t love you in return it can create a lack of confidence and feelings of self-doubt. I’m not gonna go into the details of the whole situation, but the only thing that’s relevant is that the breakup wasn’t mutual. The lack of assurance in who I was made that season of life extremely difficult for me. When you aren’t confident in yourself, you lean on other people to hold you up in those areas, thinking that it’s the right place to put it, and sometimes you do it without even recognizing that you’re doing it. It becomes a habit, and when the support is no longer there, you’re literally left with nothing because you just expended all your confidence and love into someone else and not God.
People can be spiritually sound but still immature in their faith, and that was something I realized was true for me. I was close to God, intimate with Him in many ways, and yet I lacked some foundational truths that my life needed to reflect but didn’t. One of these was trust. But the one I want to focus on is the truth that the love God has for me is enough. Pretty simple, right? We hear it all the time, “Jesus loves me.” “His love covers a multitude of sins.” “God is love.” It’s one of the first things we’re taught. Well, here was 21-year-old me who couldn’t grasp that nor feel it because I was too busy getting wrapped up in the love of another person.
When you’re drawing love from the well of a person, it comes and goes, and sometimes is enough, and when it’s not we keep going back to it expecting it to fill us. We can get caught in a cycle that a person can complete us, fill us, comfort us, fix us, etc. More often than not we do this without even realizing, because we still feel close to God and feel His Presence. This was me.
For a year I went at it with God. I interrogated Him with questions. I needed answers. Well, He came back with some questions. “Beth, why are you looking for comfort in someone else, someone who isn’t gonna give it you, when I’m right here?” “You say My love is enough, but your life doesn’t reflect that, do you really believe what I have to offer is enough?”
These hit me like a brick wall.
It’s one thing to say you believe something, but it’s a whole other thing to live it and walk it out. My life wasn’t reflecting that God loving me was enough. I wanted more than just God’s love.
Since then, I’ve learned a lot about God and His love for me. Fast forward to a week ago. It’s the last day of 2019. Holy Spirit overtook inside of me, and an outpouring of gratitude and joy came to me as I journaled. This is what I wrote, and I believe fully the only reason I finally know this about God is because of my season of heartbreak…
“Your love’s too good to leave me here. What an anthem. Your love is too good to leave me in 2019. Every place I’ve been, every valley, Your love eventually swept me away into something else. Oh, how I love to ride the wave of Your love. I feel like I’ve come to a place in my life where I understand that I’m falling short and always will, but that has no effect on whether or not I come to Jesus because He has made our relationship whole and eternal through His sacrifice on the cross and that’s why I have hope through every valley. He is neither more or less inclined. His Presence and love are immovable- it’s everywhere I am. I just have to look around. How often do I look at the turmoil, pain, and heartache going on in my life? When one look to the Father will melt it all away because of His perfect plan, His perfect nature, and His unwavering ability to show up. Thank you Jesus for 2019, and every ounce of growth I experienced. It made me more like You. I never wanna stop being molded to be like You.
I think when we understand that Jesus doesn’t owe us anything, yet gives us so much, we are able to understand a little more about this unconditional love He offers us.
Have you ever sat down and immersed yourself in the fact that we deserve nothing from God? What kind of love is this? How am I supposed to fathom this? Do we really understand what it means when we say “Jesus loves us”? Have we recognized what a life without that love looks like?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever wanna not be amazed at the love Jesus offers. And we should never be complacent. Every time we say “Jesus loves me” it should strike a gratefulness in our hearts that’s uncontainable and makes us want to worship this unrelenting Jesus. But yet we fail to see the significance in such a small phrase, and we go about our days like yeah, duh, of course He loves me. BUT DO YOU RECOGNIZE THAT HIS LOVE WAS A CHOICE AND THAT IT WOULD MAKE MORE SENSE FOR HIM TO WRITE US OFF? This love He gives us literally doesn’t make ANY sense. You and I did absolutely nothing to earn this love so why does He give it away so freely?
This reveals to me that His love is so beautiful, and even just a taste is enough to keep me wanting more forever. In 2020, I want to unwrap even just a mustard seed of this love because I think most of us have barely scratched the surface of the love He offers.
I feel like if we truly understood God’s love we would go through hard times in a different way. Sometimes I feel like God is saying, “If only they understood my love and how accessible it is to them. If Bethany knew my love for her, she wouldn’t be crying over this boy who broke her heart.” BUT GUESS WHAT? God doesn’t shame us for feeling pain and heartbreak. What does He do instead? He SITS and FEELS and WEAPS with us because He LOVES us. Even when we are so focused on *insert your lowest moment*, His loves swoops in, says “I’m always here” and He loves us in the radical way of not getting upset at us for our lack of recognition in His love and plan. Yet He comes and says, “I know exactly how you feel, let’s get through this together.” That type of love, it’s a love I’ve never seen before or felt before, and it’s a love only the Father offers.”
2nd Corinthians 5:14 (NLT) says, “Either way, Christ’s love CONTROLS us.” The love of Christ leaves us no choice except to live our lives for Him. Once we accept that love, our lives transform into a platform for His glory. Even just accessing part of it can change how we see Him.
Ephesians 3:18 (NLT) says, “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.” You know what I get out of this when I read it? We cannot understand His love fully. So, when we get even a glimpse of it our hearts should EXPLODE.
It says in Ephesians 1:4 that even before God made the world, He LOVED us. That means before anything was made, before God could love anything else, His love fell on us.
The first thing God gave us was not life, breath, or freedom, rather it was love. It is the first, last, and never-ending gift He offers.
And it’s not like I did something bad that He didn’t know about and said, “Oh it’s okay, I’ll love you anyway.”
NO.
He knew I was gonna mess up in advance and before my existence said, “I love this person and will always love them.” God’s love doesn’t adjust to our situation. There’s no need for that. It’s always the same. It’s the same love that shows up every time.
So, if I could go through the lowest moment in my life all over again, would I? Absolutely. I would go through it 100 times if it meant I learned that Jesus and His love alone are enough to keep me filled to overflowing for a lifetime. My confidence comes directly from the throne which says that I am beautiful, worthy, and seated right next to Him. I never would have been able to access this part of my relationship with Jesus if I didn’t go through complete heartbreak. I had to realize that God was the only one who could put my heart back together and give it the heartbeat that it needed.
God, Your love is enough. I am whole, not because someone else makes me whole, but because You stepped into time for me, to give me hope and a future, and to put me on mission to spread the love that you give so willingly.
If you haven't experienced His love or haven't felt it in awhile, I'd love to pray for you that His love would invade every part of your life and overtake you. Know I'm here for you, and although I might not have answers or solutions, I have an excitement about who He is and the love He gives and will be learning about the love He has for me til the day I die.
Blessings,
Beth