YOU ARE LOVED- a testimony of His great love.

 



WARNING: This video may be too much for some of you to handle. But honestly it hits home for me.



The insecurities of all the things we are called in life, or all the ways we are treated. We find our value in our past, our stories, or even the words others use against us. The truth: You are loved. Your story is part of a more grand one, one in which is beautifully and craftily built into His story. The Story of a greater love.



I was 5. I can remember it like it was yesterday. The words or phrases echo in my mind. "You are a mistake". "Go to your room, I don't want to look at you." Words parents should never speak to their children. I had a passive mother, who now, I have a good relationship with, but at the time, was too enthralled in hurt and pain that she could not protect me. My dad had placed his trust in a falsehood, and in sex and alcohol. Every day from day one was a battle for me. From being born premature, to seeing the pain my mom was going through, through seeing my dad self destruct. Abusive words, sexual images, alcohol. All the lies Satan wants us to believe. I was surrounded. "I'm not good enough". "God doesn't even love me enough to protect me." Little did I know how much He actually was protecting me. My dad would beat me and my mom often, he would cause every night to be a battle. But he had everyone fooled. Everyone loved him. So I stayed in my shell. Too quiet. Too scared to break out. I was never good enough, because he, my dad, wanted a boy. And I was born a girl.



I was 13. All the emotions and frustration of an unhealthy past. My parents were divorced, my mom in another unhealthy relationship. This time this guy scared me too. He was full of hatred. My dad, remarried, he was beating her too, and her daughter. I didn't have many friends. I was still terribly shy. My imaginary friends, and the dreams I had, they had all faded. The good I once saw in the world, all turned to darkness. I started hanging out with a few kids, but they all drank. So, although I told myself I never would, I started drinking. Loved alcohol so much, I would fill empty Mountain Dew bottles up with Vodka and take it to school. This was an easy way to hide the alcohol. I was drunk most of the time. Still made good grades though. I slipped by no one noticed. I loved black. And darkness became a friend. I started writing poems and lyrics that were all self hatred, self harm, and destruction.

I was 15. The year was 1999. Alcohol and Sexual Immorality were my only friends. I had rebelled against my family. I was a sophomore in high school. I had made new friends, but their family lives were as devastating, as full of abuse, and hatred as mine. I was misreable. And lonely. I had constant dreams of death. And it was terrifiying. But I was too far gone, or so I had thought. In the midst of my pain, and feelings of not surviving a world so violent and ugly, I had decided god was dead, and so should I be. I met a girl who played the drums the same as me, and she moved up into the high school band and reached out to me. Little did I know no matter how annoying I thought she was; the truth was ... God had sent her. I hated my life, and so I was going to put it to an end. In my little barn, beside the trailer I lived in, I walked outside, threw a rope up over a rafter, and decided to make a noose and put it around my neck. All the hatred, all the names, the lack of love I had ever felt all ran through my head. As I stepped up on an old tub we had in the barn and waited for the circulation to be cut off and for all the pain to go away, I began to cry. And the rope broke, and I fell to the ground. And the cordless house phone (you know those old things) rang. It was my friend that I had met in band. She called to ask about my day. Her kindness so innocent. But she was so interested. I began to cry and told her that I wasn't sure about this thing called God, and all these other silly things in her life that day, but somehow, I felt something that day was changing. In my stubbornness, God began to chase me, but I still told him I didn't believe in Him. There are many other parts to the story I'll tell you about if you want to know. (But you will have to message me for that.) But basically, God relentlessly used this girl, and 8 other of her friends to love me. And eventually God drew me to her church, where I would hear the gospel, and eventually, after a long hard journey, would surrender my life to Jesus Christ on dOctober 20, of 1999. I fully repented of my sins, and continue to do so. God used stories of the prodigal, and the relentless love of Him leaving the 99 for the 1 to woe me in. And He never has stopped. I got baptized on January 16, of 2000. 

I say all this to say, a little love, goes a LONG way. And when you keep someone from loving others regardless of how you feel, you may be condemning someone to hell. Self righteous foes did nothing but turn their heads and snarl their noses at me. They just kept their kids away, to keep them from being tainted, and they expected my parents to be the ones to be responsible for my salvation. But guess what, this left me lonely and alone. But because God had a bigger plan, and because God loved me, he sent imperfect people, who would later hurt me, to be the ones to show me His great love. The truth is LOVE SPEAKS VOLUMES more than judgement. Leave the judging up to Him. Who are you loving today? Or do you even believe YOU ARE LOVED?

1 John 4:19

New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁹ We love each other^[a] because he loved us first.

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.

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God. who loved me and gave himself for me.

Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, evenwhen we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—

1 John 4:9-11 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

1 John 4:7-8  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 Peter 5:6-7  Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,  casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Job 34:19 who shows no partiality to princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor,  for they are all the work of his hands?

Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

John 13:34-35  A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”