This entire year I have been fighting for what I expected love to feel like. I was looking for this overwhelming, undeniable feeling.. And I felt like I had to fight, change, and be something else in order to feel God’s love. I did everything I could think of…I dove head first into His word, I prayed every prayer I could think of, I screamed at God that every single part of me was his. I told him to use me as his vessel and let him speak to me and through me.
And he started to leak through. He taught me things and changed my heart, but there was still something missing. I was felt like I was doing everything right, but I still didn’t feel loved.
Not by my friends, not by my teammates, and not by God.
I expected it to be something that I was getting wrong. I still wasn’t who He made me to be so he didn’t fully love me yet. I had to change myself and work to find it.
This past week we went to the streets to share Jesus with strangers. We talked about different ways to start conversations and tell people about Jesus.
I realized the biggest thing that hit these strangers was hearing that God loved them and that we loved them because he was within us.
Someone would tell them that God loves them and they would scoff or tell us we were crazy. But when we prayed and showed them His love, their eyes were opened and they saw it.
And I was so excited to hear these stories! I was so stoked on what God was doing. But I was also a little annoyed because I was doing the same thing and seeing nothing. I was going out and loving people but I wasn’t seeing these amazing things…
And then it hit me: I wasn’t living what I was telling them. I told them they were loved, I was loved, everyone was loved.. But if I didn’t feel it, how did I expect them to?
And so I thought about it. I prayed about. I talked to Jesus about it. And he threw it in my face just like he always loves to:
What are you fighting for? What are you striving for? I already gave it to you. I died on the cross for you to know it.
I love you. My love surrounds you.
And I broke down. I realized I had never felt love before… And I finally felt it.
We are blinded to real love by what the world makes love into. We watch movies and see blogs on social media about what a perfect relationship or friendship is like and then we start to compare.
We think that these beautiful happy moments are what we need, and we expect this feeling that we think they have. And so we fight and search until we are depressed and hopeless that we haven’t found it yet and start to believe we never will.
The feeling of love is something we can’t even begin to grasp. God created love and he is the only one we can truly feel love from. We cannot even begin to fathom what it would feel like from people because we can never fully understand what it means to love.
Love is not something we have to fight for. Love is not something that gives us a giddy warm feeling down in our tummies.
Love is right in front us.
Real love. God’s love is there for the taking. We need to stop searching and striving and fighting for it.
All we have to do is accept it.
And once we accept his love, we can begin to learn how to feel loved by people. We have to let go of our expectations of how they should love us or how it feels to be loved and accept that they love us because God is within every single one of us. His love shines through them.
So you want to know what the 1 and only step is to feeling loved?
1. Accept it.
This is a blog I wrote on the race about this time last year about learning how to feel loved. The Lord recently brought it to mind and rereading it, I realized that I forgot some huge things that I learned last year.
We can’t strive and run after love from God or from people. We have to trust and have faith that we are loved.
Lately, I’ve been really struggling with feeling that people around me haven’t been loving me well. I’ve been feeling left out and rejected… which is my biggest fear and stems from my biggest root lie that I’m unwanted.
So you know, just some wallowing in self-pity happened…
Then, I sat down and journaled it out with the Lord at a coffee shop in town. I ranted, I raved, I screamed on paper to Him that I felt alone and unloved. And that’s when a man named Steven sat down next to me and asked me what I was journaling about. I told him I was processing some things with the Lord and he said, “I have a verse I think I need to share with you.” And he read out loud Philippians 4:6-7
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
And I realized I had made known how I felt to the Lord and prayed He would help me to see the love from those around me. Then I thanked Him for many of the amazing things He has done for me and through me and with me.
And this blog came to mind so I looked it up.. and remembered the one not-so-easy step:
Accept it.
Hey y’all!! I’m about $1950 away from being fully funded for CGA (YAYYY!!). Would you consider donating anything $1? $20? $100? Anything helps!
GOD BLESS!!
