“…and you enjoy being loved by God.”
They were passing words from a pastor who was counseling me — not even his point. But something in my mind got caught in them and stayed there while we finished the session. Something inside me that said quietly and without the least drama, “But I don’t.”
Oh.
God loved me. That was as basic a fact in my world as my mama and daddy’s love for me. It wasn’t something it had ever occurred to me to question.
But somehow, in thirty years of life and being loved by God, it had also never occurred to me that I should be enjoying it.
Being loved by the Creator of the universe, the God without whom nothing was, the God who was sovereign over everything that happened (including daddies dying, injustice, abuse, bullying, starving, war,…), the God who gave and took away, the God who made all things work for the good of those who love him?
That was something to be enjoyed?
I trusted God with everything in me I knew to trust with, but something inside me still braced.
You can make yourself do a lot of things, but one thing you cannot make yourself do is enjoy. And I knew the reality that I didn’t enjoy being loved by God meant something was seriously messed up.
I had no idea what to do about it. I didn’t know how to fix it.
But I knew there was a problem somewhere in what I believed, consciously or unconsciously or both, and I became willing to put everything I thought I knew on the table.
I didn’t do it all at once. It was a step at a time. Years in which momentum slowly grew in ways I didn’t really understand. But it started with recognizing that as I had grown up in the church, I had learned to redefine a lot of things — things like love, joy, and peace. These were all things we experience when we know Jesus. I knew Jesus, my (mostly) unconscious mind reasoned, therefore love, joy, and peace must be what it was I was experiencing.
Depression and anxiety got suppressed, redefined, and ultimately, when they were undeniable, blamed on purely physical factors. “I know a peace I don’t feel.” I’d actually said those words and meant them.
It had to be better than this, I decided, or it was just a farce. “It” being life with God, following Jesus, being a Christian.
And over the years, as I let go of a lot and looked for love, goodness, and beauty, it did get better. I wrestled through some really hard stuff and came through it with a relationship with God that was deeper than ever. Something in me relaxed, and I wasn’t bracing any more.
And then a year or so ago, for no apparent reason, the prayers and creeds and words in church started to trigger bracing in me — the instinct to draw back and distance myself. The same words of the liturgy that had been so healing for me for so many years became painful.
It was the word “God” that was doing it. “God,” “Father,” “Christ.” Most any word that referred to deity except “Jesus” triggered in me a reaction to a God I no longer believe in — a God who demands death, a God who turns his back, a God who cuts some people off, a God who is willing to sacrifice a child for the sake of his plan.
Not the God of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness. Not the God who
is love.
It hurt. I missed the presence I’d found in those words. I also realized I wasn’t just going to be able to get them back. I had to move through this, not back away from it.
So I started replacing the word “God” in the prayers and affirmations of the liturgy with the word, “Love.”
It was a revelation. I hadn’t realized how much my mind and heart still held of a god who isn’t Love.
I did the same thing with hymns, and the first time I sang Patrick’s Breastplate the new way, I couldn’t stop crying.
“I bind unto myself today
the power of Love to hold and lead,
Love’s eye to watch, Love’s might to stay,
Love’s ear to hearken to my need,
the wisdom of my Love to teach,
Love’s hand to guide, Love’s shield to ward,
the word of Love to give me speech,
Love’s heavenly host to be my guard.
Love be with me, Love within me,
Love behind me, Love before me,
Love beside me, Love to win me,
Love to comfort and restore me.
Love beneath me, Love above me,
Love in quiet, Love in danger,
Love in hearts of all that know me,
Love in mouth of friend and stranger.”
There is no perfect way to approach the holy, the divine. But, love, we have been told, comes closest.
“Beloved, let us love one another.
For love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knowers God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love.
Beloved, let us love one another!”
(1 John 4:7-8)
So I’m still learning to know God, to grasp what is at the heart of the universe.
And to enjoy being loved.
Leaning Out 