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Writer's pictureThe Steadfast Butterfly

How I Know HE Loves Me

When I fell in love with my husband in my mid-twenties, I thought I “knew” we were in love based on our attraction to one another, the affection we shared, our common beliefs and interests, and the joy of being together. When we got engaged a year later, I was thrilled about planning our wedding. However, as the date approached, my family was in turmoil due to a family member’s 18-year marriage falling apart. Doubts began to creep in, especially when a bridesmaid expressed concern that I was marrying the wrong person just a week before the wedding. Fear took up residence in my heart, but with wedding plans already in fifth gear, I pushed my doubts aside.


On the day of the wedding, I wasn’t smiling for the pre-wedding photos and had to be urged to do so from the sidelines. Before I knew it, I found myself walking down the aisle. As the ceremony began, I wondered if I was making the right decision, especially when I looked at the loved ones whose marriage was ending. When it was time to recite our vows, my groom read his heartfelt words with love shining through his eyes and voice. In that moment, my doubts melted away, fear moved out, and I truly KNEW I was making the right choice. His genuine love, coupled with his vows of permanent commitment convinced me that he truly loved me, and we could be successful in marriage.


Christian marriage is meant to reflect what an intimate relationship with God is like. It helps us understand His love for us as Christ's “bride,” the Church (See Ephesians 5:22-23, 25-27). Traditional wedding vows use phrases like “for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health” reminding us that married life will have its challenges. So, too, we can be assured that the Christian life in general will have some level of hardship, but we can rely on God’s loyal love to walk through it with us.


As a child and teen, I believed God loved me, knowing verses like John 3:16 and the Sunday School song “Jesus loves me, this I know...” However, life’s hardships chipped away at the experience of "knowing", and I began to feel unloved personally by God. A painful breakup from a four-year high school dating relationship happened in my first semester of college, followed by a several-year unhealthy relationship throughout the rest of my college years. This left me feeling lost as I watched many friends and peers get married. I interpreted this painful time in life as not being loved by God. I ended up choosing to be alone for the next two and a half years and moved far from home to earn a master’s degree.


There are moments in life that deeply imprint on our souls. I remember an “aha!” moment one Christmas break during graduate school when I read the book “Hinds Feet on High Places,” written by Hannah Hurnard. This Christian allegorical novel helped me realize that hardship does not indicate a lack of love from God toward me. I began to understand that His love was proven on the cross, not through providing me with a life devoid of pain and loneliness. He would walk with me through all the hard times, providing comfort and guidance, but not all my clouds were going to be lined with silver.


I finally grasped that God’s love was demonstrated by providing a way for me to have restored relationship with Him through His gift of salvation. He paid a high price for my sins through the sacrifice of His Son. By accepting this gift, it also allowed me to walk in fellowship with Him through life’s trials. This new understanding of what God’s love looks like, defining it by His actions on the cross, not a misplaced expectation that He provide constant ease and pleasure for this life on earth, took hold in my heart and has grown over the decades.


As much as I would love to be free of back pain, relational stress and brokenness, financial limitations, and other temporal, earthly issues, I know that God walks with me through it all and that He comforts me in loneliness and suffering, He guides me when I need wisdom, He willingly and freely forgives me when I fall short of His glory and perfection, and is the one constant relationship that will never leave me or forsake me. Fully grasping God’s way of showing His love helped me to KNOW that I am loved. If I went through life defining it on my own terms, I would never experience His love in a personal way.


If you grew up in a Christian family, you may have heard “God loves you” from childhood. But when did it resonate deeply within your soul? As you enter 2025, I hope you take time to reflect on how God has demonstrated His love toward you and seek a deeper understanding of what it means when you hear “God loves you.” I hope you KNOW God loves you deeply…not just the world in general, but YOU…specifically YOU. He is a relational God, and it is an intimate offer He makes for you to enter into life-long covenant fellowship with Him. He does not offer “only” salvation, but He offers a relationship where you can truly KNOW that you are loved by your creator and Heavenly Father and can do life together with Him.


John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” 


Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”


John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: that someone lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”


I John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”

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