Pondering LOVE #5
A series of meditative questions about love.
Do I let God Love me?
As we continue walking down the road to LOVE, here is a question for you to ponder this week: Do I let God love me? Scripture is His LOVE letter to us; it is the easiest medium to hear his voice spoken directly to you. The Holy Spirit is that clever to get your attention and give you understanding for just what you need to hear this day. A constant theme throughout the Bible is God’s unending Love for us, the depth of his mercy for us and his willingness to strengthen us and guide us with the POWER of his Holy Spirit. We are crazy not to accept his love! Here are a few of my favorite verses:
Do I really believe God loves me? Do I accept his free gift of love? Why is it easier to believe the devil’s lies that I’m not good enough, that my sins or my mistakes define who I am? How do I speak to myself? Harshly and critically or the same way I would speak to a beloved child or to our God, patiently and lovingly. Hmmm. Why do I feel so unworthy? Am I my worst critic? Think how it feels if someone criticizes your child? Your husband? Your sibling? It doesn’t sit well, raises our ire. It doesn’t sit well with Jesus either when you criticize yourself, think of yourself as unworthy. He gave you everything he had so you would have the free opportunity to love well. Picture Mary in Michelangelo’s sculpture, the Pieta: imagine Mary, holding her dead son, Jesus, and saying: “What more could he do for you to prove his love?” (Ref to Father Larry Richards)
You are not an accident. He designed and created you exactly how he wanted, as his beloved, cherished child. He is the source of everything good in our lives. We need to receive His love in order to give it away. In order to Love well, we must go to the source of love, which is Christ, his mercy, his grace, and the sacraments.
He loved us first. He totally and freely gives us love so we can love him, love ourselves and in turn love others. We want to accept his love and have faith that what He tells us in Scripture is true!!! Listen to His words to St. Faustina:
“Distrust on the part of souls is tearing at My insides. The distrust of a chosen soul cause Me even greater pain; despite My inexhaustible love for them they do not trust Me. Even My death is not enough for them” …. St. Faustina, Divine Mercy Pg. 25
“My heart overflows with great mercy for souls, and especially for poor sinners. If only they could understand that I am the best of Fathers to them and that it is for them that the Blood and water flowed from my heart as from a fount overflowing with mercy. For them I dwell in the tabernacle [as the Eucharist] as King of Mercy. I desire to bestow My graces upon souls, but they do not want to accept them. Oh, how indifferent are souls to so much goodness, to so many proofs of love! My heart drinks only of the ingratitude and forgetfulness of souls living in the world. They have time for everything, but they have no time to come to Me for graces…. I do not find complete surrender to my Love. So many reservations, so much distrust, so much caution. St. Faustina, Divine Mercy Pg. 165
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
PRAYER:
Seek the Source of Love. Happy Loving this week!