I God You my Valentine

When a child I was told that God is love. That information made me feel all warm and fuzzy. I imagined that it meant He was like my Teddy Bear who always smiled and let me hug him all night without squirming away.

When Jesus said to love my enemies, to be good to them because God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked I had to think just a little bit harder about what love is. I wondered if God is kind to me when I am ungrateful and wicked; if He patiently waits for me to be kind too. God’s love is not as void as my Teddy Bear’s.

Love has to overcome some pretty powerful resistance to be itself. Being impatient and angry is like sledding down a snowy hill, when really love is walking back up. I suppose I would much rather be loved then to love others.

If I can be loved by God and anyone else who is foolish enough to try hard to become like God who loves His enemies, the wicked and ungrateful, then I don’t have to do anything at all.  I can even be unkind and wicked. I can lie and cheat and steal and hate my sister and God will still love me because He can’t help Himself. He is love and the only way He relates to anyone is via the love channel.

God’s love for each person is a compulsive love which sometimes is appreciated and reciprocated and sometimes it is ignored. Poor God.

I think God tries very hard to be loved and I feel sorry for Him because He doesn’t have anyone above Him, like His own God who must love Him no matter what He does. The way I see it, God works hard for our love.  He teaches, and gives amazing gifts and He heals. These are some of the reasons I love Him so much. I know I can trust Him because He is honest, He never ever lies to me.

I am so happy to know that I don’t have to work as hard to be loveable as God does. I suppose one of the reasons that God wants people to follow Him, to be exactly like Him is for the relief He experiences of being loved no matter what happens in their lives, even bad things that aren’t fixed right away like sickness and poverty or even loneliness.

Okay, I won’t be silly anymore because those thoughts make me feel too sad; it is all so unfair.

God is love. I want to be like Him, just like Him in every way, even when it means climbing up a snowy hill, and loving people who are mean to me or ignore me just as He does. This way God will know He found someone in me that loves Him too, no matter what.

My dear Valentine, you don’t have to be a Teddy Bear for me to love you because of what God taught me. But it would help. :-)