How AMAZING is God's love?!

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Hi friends! Today I wanted to share a story/testimony/reflection on how I came to know all about God's amazing love!!

Since I was 11 years old, I'd had it engrained in my mind that if I angered God, He would punish me severely and without mercy. I thought that God would hate me for even the smallest of honest mistakes. I was always plagued with the thought that one day I would mess up so badly, I couldn't be saved, I couldn't be forgiven, I couldn't be loved.  Little 11-year-old me didn't really know how to handle that, so I kept it kind of bottled up inside. I was scrupulously monitoring everything I did, replaying moments in my head over and over again to make sure I hadn't accidentally sinned, and forming private habits that, at first glance, could have been called pious, but were really things I did only because I feared I would not be loved if I didn't do them. Unfortunately, given that this all began just before covid, I wasn't able to go to mass or confession in my struggle. During this time, my relationship with the Lord crumbled. I believed God existed, but I lost my trust in Him, and my hope. In my eyes, God had left me high and dry to fight on my own. Boy was I wrong. After covid, my family joined a new parish community. We surrounded ourselves with families, like us, who were on fire with love for Christ. Together we grew stronger in our faith. We went from a family that was Catholic, to a Catholic family. With the help of two friends that I had made in this community, I learned more about the faith than I had ever known before. I came to love the Catholic Faith, and God in a deeply personal way. But I wasn't fully convinced that God loved me the same. It took me a while to get to that point, but I remember when I did. 

It happened during adoration with my youth group. About ten of us filed into the small chapel an knelt on the cold tile floor as our youth leader opened the doors of the tabernacle, which held a monstrance. I sat for a long time silently conversing with Jesus, telling Him my concerns and worries, and then praying for my friend who was sitting next to me. In the middle of our time there, without any prompt or warning, with no words or epiphanies to lead me, my heart was filled with a feeling I will never be able to accurately describe. My whole life, people had told me Jesus loved me, but in that moment, in the quiet of the adoration chapel, Jesus filled my heart with His love for me. I had never felt so light. Jesus, the King of the whole universe, loved me, personally, intimately, and deeply. Jesus loved me, May. He loved me with all my wounds, all my scars, all my broken pieces and hurting parts. My parents had always stressed Gods love for me, but for the first time I believed with my whole heart that God truly loved me. I never wanted to lose this love. 

How amazing is this love friends?! We were given the privilege of life. That was more than enough. We messed up and deserved to live in Hell for eternity. But He did not desire that. He desired to live with us for all of eternity. He desired His beloved creation. So, He came down from Heaven. That was abundantly gracious. He came not as a king, but as a baby, born to a girl who was only 15. He died so that we wouldn't have to. He gave us His body and His blood and a promise that He would be with us always. He promised He would never leave us. Every single day, with every beat of our hearts Jesus tells us over and over again "I love you." not as an empty phrase, but as a promise and an assurance. He loves the most sinful of us as much as He loves the saints among us. I cannot ask this enough my friend, how amazing is God's love?!?! 

My dear friend, as you read this today, I hope you know and never forget how much Jesus loves you. No matter how close or far from Him you may be, His love is the same. God, the creator of Heaven and Earth, the artist who paints every sunrise and sunset, the one who put the stars in the sky, the one who put flowers in the sidewalk cracks to brighten your day, the one who smiles at you through strangers, that same God, loves you, deeply, intimately, and personally. 

 

See you in the Eucharist friends, 

May


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