He Loves Me

One Great Love

 I am still struggling with how to respond to all the human suffering in the world. Personal suffering such as my friend's cancer diagnosis... Communal suffering such as the tornado destruction in Oklahoma.... Universal suffering such as the knowledge of our own mortality...

I've prayed a lot, read a lot, listened to a lot of music, and thought a lot about suffering, rejoicing, and living. There have been myriad threads of meaning throughout my pondering. But this morning, I visited my friend's blog site and read her last two blog posts. One was prior to her re-diagnosis with cancer; the other was after the bad news came. The post from before the diagnosis of a recurrence of cancer ended with these words:

"But He still loved me. Yes, I had cancer. Doesn't mean He didn't love me. Just meant I had cancer."

One Great Love

Those words reverberated deep within my soul. This is the bedrock of what I know is true: God loves me/you. He knows us, and He loves us.

He loves us when we're happy and pleased. He loves us when we're shocked and miserable. He knew all of our days even before we were formed (Psalms 139: 16), even those days in which we question or doubt Him. So when those days come, He loves us. In our illness, in our disaster, in our mortality. He loves us.

One Great Love

And that makes a difference, personally, communally, and universally. Knowing that God loves us, in all the pain of infertility, in all the agony of terminal illness, in all the grief, fear, and anger we face, gives us a place of solace, of grace, of comfort.

God doesn't create horrible circumstances for us, but He buoys us up through them by His love. Another friend frequently gives this advice, "Just keep swimming." I'm going to add, "And reach for your life preserver: God. He will carry you through the crashing waves because He loves you."