Late-Night Twitter Musings on the Love of God

Hi... My name is Charlie, and I'm a compulsive overeater.

::Hi, Charlie!::

I posted this long, rambling reflection on God's love last night on Twitter, 140 characters at a time.

Feeling connected to God tonight. #Grateful for a God who really truly loves us. I used to have a friend who doubted God's love for her.

She had come out of a life of real degradation, including drug addiction and prostitution.

But she had found a relationship with God through Jesus... and we served in ministry together.

She still struggled, though, with crippling self-hatred and self-sabotaging behaviors.

I would try to assure her that she was loved by God, & she would reply, in those times, w/ "So what's the big deal? If God loves everyone...

Then why is it special that God loves me?

I had a revelation one day that helped her - and ME - to understand a little better.

If God is a loving parent... then my love for my children is NOTHING compared to God's love for me.

And even though I love all of my kids the same AMOUNT...

I *don't* love them in the same way at all...

In fact, my love for my firstborn son is radically different from my love for my middle son. Which is different from my love for my daughter

and her twin brother. Equal love in many ways, but VERY different and unique love.

And... this was important to me anyway... the "kind" of love I have for my kids... it's based on who THEY are... as unique individuals.

I simply cannot love child 1 in the same "generic" way I love child 2... Impossible.

So each child get this radically unique love that is based in the relationship that he or she and I share...

NO ONE ELSE will ever share that love but that child and me. It's unique, special.

And I think that's how our God loves us.

With a radically unique love that only we as individuals can share with God...based on who we are and who God is.

It's truly a one-of-a-kind love in the history of the Universe because that's how unique we are.

The other piece of this lies in the unchanging nature of God... The love, although it is uniquely focused on each of us as individuals,

is not based on us... how "good" or "bad" we are...

Rather, it is based in who GOD is and the reality that God has chosen US and called us beloved... God's very own sons and daughters.

I try to communicate that love to my own children.

My love for my daughter, for instance, is not BECAUSE of her beauty...

Although she certainly is a little beauty...

No, I love her for one simple reason: She's MINE.

That will never change.

Appearance, talent, intellect, personality, circumstances of life...

Those are love-able things...

But they can change.

The reality that my children are MY CHILDREN. That doesn't change.

It lets my kids be secure in the fact that I will never, ever stop loving them.

(Wonder where all that came from tonight?)

Good night, Twitterverse. Rest in the arms of your Higher Power. U R loved with an everlasting love. Surrender to that loving Power tonight.