What Woundrous Love is This?

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down
Beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

~What Wondrous Love is This?, American Hymn~

As a little girl no older than three or four, sometimes I would sing to myself as I fell asleep. Most of the songs I knew at that age I'd learned in church. "Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong." I knew the words by heart, but I could not comprehend their meaning.

As an adult now, may I admit that I still have trouble comprehending their meaning? I made a false profession at a young age and several years later I came to truly know the Lord as my Saviour. Until that moment I can honestly say I'd never felt love. Of course I was loved. My family loved me very much and I believe some precious Christians in my church loved me too, but often people would say that they loved me and I never felt anything. I had a head knowledge that I was loved, but it didn't sink much further than that. It was an awful feeling, always wondering what love really was and what it really felt like or looked like. I blame no one for that, I just openly admit that this was how I felt for the majority of my life, until I came to Christ. And I don't believe we really can love or feel true love until we know personally the God who IS love itself.

The night I was saved, my grandfather read to me the verses we're all so familiar with. Verses that I'd put to memory myself just like those song lyrics. When he read John 3:16 to me, it all finally came together clearly in my mind for the very first time. You see, first he read, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosover believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," but then he reread it like this: "For God so loved Abby, that he gave his only begotten Son, that if Abby believeth in him she should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

Let me be clear, I love my Bible. I'll stand for it till the day I die, and I don't agree with rewording verses or rewriting God's Word. However, until that moment, it never clicked in my mind that God personally loved ME. He loved ME so much that He left Heaven to live on this wicked earth and allowed sinful men to nail his precious body to cross. He allowed His precious blood to be shed because He didn't want me to die and go to hell. It overwhelmed me to realize the God of Heaven loved me like that! Because of that, I knew for the first time that He would save me when I asked, because if He loved me that much, that meant He wanted me. 

I went to sleep that night feeling wrapped in arms of love, overwhelmed with so much joy to realize, "He wants me! He loves me! He saved me! He really did!" I know we are not saved based on feelings, but that is how I felt. As women we are emotional (sometimes more so than at other times!) and feelings are important to us. I believe that's why salvation made sense to me for the first time that night, because for the first time I realized what love felt like, what it looked like, and what it was like directed at me.

However, it wasn't long after that night that I failed the Lord. I sinned. I messed up. I knew I John 1:9. I knew if I asked Him, He'd forgive me, but the trouble was, I didn't feel forgiven. I struggled for years with that. Every time I sinned I felt unworthy to ask Him to forgive me, unworthy to receive His forgiveness. Unworthy of His wondrous love. So I had to take God at His Word. The words to children song I learned were literal to me. "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." I had to believe that when He said in the Bible that if I asked, He'd forgive me. He would be faithful to cleanse me. That He still loved me And He has done that so many times for me in the fifteen years I've known Him as my Saviour, Father, and Friend. He has always forgiven me whenever I asked. I had to put into practice the truth that we can't base our standing with God on our feelings. Yet still I prayed that the Lord would help me in that area, that He would let those truths of unconditional love, forgiveness, and mercy become more than just a head knowledge to me. I wanted to see it, to know it, to feel it. I wanted it to be as real to me as the night He saved me.

Many years passed, and I wondered sometimes if I would ever truly understand it the way I was sure He wanted me to understand it. Then one day God started something precious in my life. He allowed me to meet a wonderful gentleman. I came to love that man very much, but I wondered if he would love me. Months passed. A year passed. Then two. I knew I wanted to marry this man. I knew the Lord had led us together in an unusual and wonderful way. But...did he love me? Would I struggle with knowing his love as I struggled with my Heavenly Father's love? I prayed not.

I didn't realize it, but the wonderful man God had sent to me, was actively showing me his love. For months he had been doing things to demonstrate his love to me, but I couldn't see it. It never registered with me. Then one afternoon as we dropped some things off at a thrift store, seemingly out of no where, he told me, "I love you." I cried. I cried tears of joy to realize this wonderful man loved...ME! When I heard the words it all made sense. Very much like the night God saved me, when I heard the words, "for God so loved Abby..." I knew for the first time God truly loved me.

However, I often find myself failing this wonderful man. Sometimes I get it wrong. Sometimes I misunderstand him. Sometimes I am irritable, anxious, upset, downright angry, and I fail him. He deserves my utmost respect, but there are times when my sinful self bares it's head. There's one thing I've noticed however: the moment I ask his forgiveness, he immediately gives it. He doesn't just say the words, but he truly forgives me. So many times he's extended to me grace that I knew I did not deserve. So many times he's answered softly to my words of frustration. So many times he's reminded me in my worst moments that he loves me and always will. 

His love for me amazes me. It overwhelms me sometimes. I can't quite understand it. I don't feel that I deserve it. But one day after one of those moments, something finally registered with me: "That's how my Heavenly Father loves me! That's how He forgives me! That's the way He sees me, only in a more perfect way!"

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

 ~Ephesians 5:25

I realized if a human man could be so forgiving, so loving, so gracious toward me, how much more so did Christ feel that way toward me? It overwhelmed me with joy! It still does each time I think of it! For so long I'd asked the Lord to make His love known to me in a way that I could understand. He had taught it to me in such a beautiful way. I realized if a man wanted to restore me to fellowship that much, if a man could so quickly and freely forgive me, then God wanted to do so even more! When I look at Chris, I can honestly say that I see Christ in him. I treasure that. And as he loves me, I find I love him even more. That makes sense given that we love God because He first loved us.

Though I now understand more fully that God does love me and truly forgives me and extends mercy to me when I ask, I'll never understand WHY God loves sinful, fallen man. People can try to explain it, or give reasons. However, if we could figure God out, He would not be God. We can't fully comprehend His love. What would make Him leave Heaven for me or for you? I don't know. But I know that He did. He loves me, and He loves you, with a powerful, unconditional, passionate love. It's a wondrous love. It is wonderful and it does cause us to wonder. As another song says, even if the sky were parchment and the ocean ink, we could never contain it. It is boundless. It is perfect. It is wondrous!  

If you don't know His love, come to Him. No matter who you are, where you've been, or what you've done, He wants to extend His love and forgiveness to you. He wants you to know His wondrous love!