Does God really love me? Or am I just crazy?

I wrote the following around 11 years ago.  I guess somehow my thoughts could have been synthesized into one question, “Does God really love me?”

It’s over a decade later and my view of God has changed tremendously. I’ve since experienced moments of feeling something lovingly transcendent. I’ve felt a pure sense of being loved and accepted completely outside of my religious vocabulary. 

I don’t recognize the me who once spoke of this strained relationship with my ‘God in a box.’ 

Sometimes I still catch myself overwhelmed by the awareness that my spiritual understanding has changed so much.  I even feel a tinge of embarrassment. I regret that I spent so much time trying to make God love me, when God IS love. 

None-the-less, here is the story of my past strained relationship with a God who never even existed.

Does God Really Love Me?

My religious background – a rocky introduction to love

I grew up in a Christian home and had wonderful parents. The only angst I had growing up, was just that our home was too religious.

Everything was Christian, almost to the choice of which toilet paper we should buy. And I’ll never forget the day we were banned from watching “The Smurfs.”

But it wasn’t the faith I grew up to reject. I just couldn’t keep up with the stringent imposition of God’s “law” that I could not personally fulfill.

God’s love is bigger than the church

With so many rules and regulations, my relationship with Christ had become stressed. If you grew up with similar circumstances, maybe you can relate.

My predicament was similar to a suffering marriage. Neither spouse can meet the expectations of the other who makes it their personal mission to fit you into a tight mold.

I knew I loved God, but did God love me?

I just couldn’t get it right. I’d been told this God was saving me from my dark side. It was often repeated that there’s a God shaped void in my life that only He could fill.

But at the same time our relationship was strained because I felt like He needed too many things in return. Things I couldn’t give Him.

Though it was unspoken, I believed that God would only love me if I did exactly what He wanted. And I needed to do it when He wanted and how He wanted it.

Love is bigger than religion

So, I finally broke up with a God who was controlling, unreasonable, and unloving. It wasn’t just him. It was me. I need to feel true love–the mysterious “thing” inside us all that draws us to nature and uninhibited closeness with others.

God says He will never leave us or forsake us. But what happens when we leave Him?

Even when we’ve moved away, is our place with God reserved until we’re ready to go home? Will He show us what it was about ourselves that caused us to run away?

Conclusion

Beyond any earthly definition of what we long for so deeply, I learned that true love is unconditional. It exists outside of our desire to please. Love is everywhere. Love is. God is love. Love really loves us.

LoveLifeLinks.com hopes you’ll finally experience God is love.

Remember, you can feel love anywhere, anytime, all the time.