This song has been creeping up on me all week and holding on to my attention. It happens the same way almost every time. I am playing music in the background, doing something else, and the tune catches me. I look at the player, I see it is called Perfect Love (by Leeland). And I smile… Because His love is perfect. Because He has always loved… always been there…
It ends, and i rewind it. (is that what they call it still?) Because i missed the beginning… And the tune refuses to be put away just yet… Because the kids are squealing in excitement in the back, and no matter how hard i try I can’t make out the words. For the first time I notice a line that sounds like “You see who I have become, You love me still.” (Google later tells me the actual words are “You saw who we became, You loved us Lord”… A totally different context, but that is where this was born.)
Because there, like a light breaking through the clouds on a gray and gloomy day, I find what I have been straining to hear. He sees who I have become, and He loves me still. In the fulfillment of dreams, and prayers answered above and beyond, He loves me still. In the pain that was once resident and is now gone, He loves me still. In the midst of broken dreams and castaway hopes, He loves me still. In the unpredictability that is my days during the summer, missed deadlines and overshot calorie goals, He loves me still. In the pride of serving courgettes grown in my own strip of a garden, at a picnic atop a mountain, He loves me still. In the dark of the night when the answers won’t come and the tears won’t stop, He loves me still. In the moments when I realise I have been conned or robbed, He loves me still. And in the little steps that are getting me where He has called, He loves me still. Everyday. Every time. Always. And in the words of Michael W Smith, “I have never been unloved.”
It is a great thing to realise that you have never been unloved. I remember one day, I was in the car, going back home and listening to a recording by Zig Ziglar and he said that he had always had love in his life. In that moment, it hit me that so had I. And there and then, truth that had not made it’s way past my head went deep deep into my heart, and I thanked God I was very near my home so I could stop the car before I became a hazard. There are things we have to know on our own. Like a girl needs to know on her own that she is beautiful and worth a lot. If she doesn’t know it for herself, no matter how many people tell her, she will not hear it. She will look at herself each day and think she is fat or too skinny or ugly or whatever, but not beautiful. We each have to know that we are loved. Not with a fickle love, a fading love, a conditional love, but with a love everlasting and totally unreserved.
He loves me still. Selah.
No matter where I am at, no matter what i do or fail to do, He loves me still. As a mother that second guesses and triple guesses every choice, I choose to believe the truth that He loves them too. He made them, He has a great plan for them and He will lead them in the paths He has chosen for them. And even if they may wander from the way, He will love them still. When they supercede every dream I have for them, He will love them still.
Kids United (my daughter’s current favourite band ever) have a song called “Sauver l’amour” and the chorus has a line “Qu’ est-ce qui pourrait sauver l’ amour?” meaning “Who can save love?” But in reality, love is alive and well and not in need of saving. We just have to open our hearts and our minds to the perfect love of the Father, and to the many expressions of His love in the people he has placed around us. And then to open our hearts to give of that love which we have received.
Maybe that will be the reason we smile while the battles rage. Why we hold our heads high and meet life head on. Why we choose to love, to be bold and brave as we walk the journey. Cos He sees who we have become, and He loves us still.