Of course I could sweep and cry.
The floor wasn’t sweeping itself just because my heart ached. What was heavier that day than any other being married to an addict? I don’t know, but I do know I was ready for a divorce. My heart was done with the constant financial, emotional, and spiritual drains my husband put on our family. Yet I knew God had other thoughts—He hated divorce.
I cried, “God, will You still love me if I divorce my husband?” As clear as anything I’ve ever heard, He said, “I love you. I have always loved you. I loved you when you were a sinner, and I will always love you.” I stopped and sobbed. Peace and well-being flooded me. God loved me. The truth sunk into my heart like never before. And He promised to keep loving me.
God’s love for me came before I chose to follow Him. How could He love me less after I gave my life to Him? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
Remarkably, I sometimes still question God’s love. I feel unworthy. I try earning His love with good deeds. Then He reminds me that He loved me when I was still a sinner. It isn’t my worthiness that made Him love me then or now. He loves His children, and I am most surely His child.
I didn’t divorce my husband, but not because I thought God would stop loving me. Somehow, God’s love sustained me through twenty-five more years until He took my husband home.
God’s love has the power to sustain each of us. We can walk with Him, knowing His love is perfect, although ours is not. His love reached out to us while we were sinners.
Are you feeling unworthy of God’s love? God loved you first while you were still in your sins. Rejoice in His great love for you.
(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)
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Janet Jones grew up in the San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys. She wanted to be a writer when she was a little girl. Janet experienced a few years of life before that became a reality. She was married at sixteen and had two sons by the time she was eighteen, at which time she gave her heart to Jesus. She loved being a mother and had four sons by the time she was twenty-seven. She went back to school and earned her high school diploma. When her youngest was three, Janet pursued a college education and teaching credential. She became an elementary school teacher in 1999 and taught for twenty years. Janet retired from teaching in 2019 and finally had time to chase her dream of becoming a writer. She published her first book, God, Our Amazing Creator, four months before her sixtieth birthday. Today, she loves Jesus, being with friends and family, loving on grandchildren, writing, reading, riding horses, and playing the guitar.