The older I get the more aware I am that everybody has a deep desire to be loved and accepted. I can see it in myself and I can see it in everyone around me.
I grew up in a Christian home. My dad worked for a church (shout out to any shloer-drinking-quiche-eating-last-to-leave-the-church vicars kids out there!). I had a secure home with parents who loved me so well. I went to church and on the outside ticked all the ‘good christian’ boxes. I went to youth group, I knew all the words to My Jesus My Saviour off by heart, I prayed sometimes and attempted Bible in a year most Januarys but still, I found myself dissatisfied. I longed for people to like me at school, to fit in, to be noticed and valued. I wasn’t at peace. It wasn’t until I started listening to friends and family who were signposting me to Jesus and opening up to me the radical significance of his life, death and resurrection, that my soul started to know an immovable and overwhelming sense of being loved and a peace that nothing else could offer me.
In my late teens there was a gradual awakening that began in me to the fact that God so longed for me not to be separated from him that he sent his precious son to this world to carry all my selfishness and wrong doing on Him so that I can be restored into relationship with God! I began to recognise my need for Jesus to make right all that I’d done to turn away from God. God the father sent Jesus because His love for me was so strong and he wanted my friendship forever.
'But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.’
- Romans 4:4-5
As life has continued, I've understood more and more that God’s love for me is mighty. His love for us meant that Jesus had to die for us, so that we can know eternal freedom from death and have a certain hope for today. Having a revelation of Jesus Christ has transformed the way I view myself, God and others. I believe the same can happen for you too. The most amazing thing I've known to be true is that God doesn’t love us based on what we have or haven’t done. He found me when I was dead in my sin and loved me all the same.
Life isn't always straight forward! I experienced some bullying at school, have known extreme home-sickness and anxiety when in Australia on my gap year and have been interviewed for jobs I'd really hoped to get but did not get offered the job. The love of Jesus has been my firmest foundation and security during these times. Though I may have felt hurt by people or situations I have been in, knowing that I'm loved wholly and unconditionally has been my greatest source of comfort and peace, despite pain.
Do you long to be loved, with an everlasting-unshakeable love? Do you want to be accepted as you are? Jesus knows this and best of all, he will fulfil these desires. We were made for him, to live our lives with him and for him. Look to Jesus; to his love, acceptance and forgiveness. He’ll never let you go!
‘He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’
- Psalm 103:10-12
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