The other night my husband and I were laying in bed talking. As we prepared to go to sleep for the night, he turned over and wrapped me in his arms. As I lay there, listening to him breathe and feeling the warmth of his body, I felt so safe and secure. I don’t deserve to be loved as well as he loves me. I just don’t. I can be bossy and talk too much and struggle with being submissive sometimes but he loves me, anyway. I make mistakes and sin and fail and continue to do so even after all these years. And yet he continues to love me. For almost 28 years, this man has loved me despite my faults.
Of course, he has his faults, too, and so we love each other, offering much grace and mercy, in our mutual understanding that we are both sinful human beings in a fallen world.
I know I am beyond blessed to have this kind of marriage. I know that this is not the experience of everyone. And my heart hurts for those of you who have never experienced this or have experienced it but have had it taken away due to the great thief called Death. (And, on a side note–we all have our crosses to bear. My crosses just look different than yours. A happy marriage does not equal a perfect life.)
But as I was thinking about the security I feel in the imperfect, human love of my sinful husband, I found my mind moving to the absolute security, safety, and peace that we have in the perfect, divine love of our Heavenly Father when we are born again. We can trust Him wholly because of who He is.
It is a little easier for us to offer love to one another because we understand each others’ humanity. We expect the other person to make mistakes and to fail and change. We expect them to expect us to do the same.
But God doesn’t change. He doesn’t fail. He doesn’t make mistakes.
That He would reach down to love someone such as I astounds me. He is perfect, just, and holy. He is omnipotent and mighty. He does not need me for any reason. I have nothing to offer Him. Anything good in me is a gift from Him to be used for His glory. And yet, despite all this, He made a way for me–and for you, too–to be saved through faith alone, by His grace alone.
Ephesians 2:4-10 is just one of the scripture passages where we read of this great love towards wretched sinners–
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
God loves us with great love and much mercy. And that’s something to be thankful for today. There are so many songs about God’s love, but I think the song How Deep the Father’s Love For Us best expresses my thoughts for today–
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
Here is the song, if you’ve never heard it but would like to. I hope it is a comfort and blessing to you today, no matter what circumstances you find yourself in–
Love these thoughts, Leslie! To say, “God is so good!” doesn’t even begin to describe His love and goodness!
Amen!
Thank you for this reminder of the undeserved love we receive from God, Our Father. It is indeed beyond measure.
Thank you, Allison. You have become such an encouragement to me!
I am sitting in a café in town, reading this, struggling to keep the tears at bay. This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing this.
I do have one question for you. In your first paragraph, you referred to sometimes struggling to be submissive. Could you please explain more what you mean by this? Are you referring to submitting to your God or submitting to your husband? We worship the Goddess, so I am not entirely sure how you define this concept or what you base this belief/practice on.
I am sure, between being a wife and mother, plus all you do on your site, you are very busy, so I don’t want to take up a lot of your time. If you have already written on this elsewhere, feel free to just direct me to another article. I don’t want you to have to rewrite what you’ve already written elsewhere. ;)
Thanks again. This really touched my heart.
You are welcome :) I do find myself wondering, however, how or why this resonated with you? If you don’t believe in the God of the Bible, I am unsure as to why you find this touching your heart? I truly hope it is because God is working there, drawing you to Himself in the only way that is possible (John 14:6).
As for the submission thing, I do have a post about this very thing and I think you will find it very helpful. You can find it here–https://growing4life.net/the-s-word/
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have further questions! :)
It resonated with me because pure love is the strongest, most powerful force in the universe. We worship Creator of All. You believe He is the Lord God. We believe She is the Lady Goddess. Regardless of whether Creator of All is masculine, feminine, or something else entirely we can’t grasp, there is only ONE Creator of All. And She/He is pure love.
Based on my understanding, I may disagree with the gender you ascribe, but the fact that Creator of All is pure love remains the same. I don’t have to believe in Jesus to be drawn to the Creator’s heart of love and want to pattern my life after the Creator: doing good to others. I don’t agree with everything you write, but I still enjoy and benefit from much of it.
Again, thanks for making this a welcoming place for all. Thanks, too, for that link. I’ll check it out.
I am so glad you enjoy my posts but I have to let you know that we do not believe in the same God. In fact, my God and your goddess are categorically opposed. There is the God of the Bible and there is Satan, who masquerades as gods and goddesses and Allah and false prophets and spirits and dead loved ones, etc. There are only two religions — one says man has merit on his own to reach God and one says God reached down to sinful man by sending His son, Jesus, because man has no merit or can be good enough to be reconciled to God. You believe the first and I believe the second and they are complete opposites. Thank you for your comments and I do hope you will stick around but you need to know that I am going to be praying for you, Rhiannon, that your eyes will be opened and you will recognize that the God of the Bible is the only true God. While I do appreciate your thoughts, I cannot agree with them.
So you don’t worship the same divinity as the Muslims? I thought all the Abrahamic religions worshiped the same one….?? Thanks for taking the time to reply personally. I appreciate it.
I am very happy to say we do not. The loving, merciful God of the Bible is not the same god that the Muslims serve.
Right. Well, then. Clearly, I’m the outsider here. Respectfully, you do not know what we believe beyond the little I have shared, but you have made some statements based on your assumptions of what we believe. Your comments here and on “Living in Stepford” made me sad while at the same time underscoring to me why I do not believe in your divinity.
Regardless, you clearly love the Creator and want to do well by others. I wish you well. Thank you for sharing.
There are no “outsiders” here and you are most welcome! But I would be doing a grave disservice to you and all my readers if I did not make clear the vast gulf between what you believe and what the Bible says.