Okay. Deep breath.
God is love hit me square in the chest last Tuesday, like actually, while I was ugly-crying in the Meijer self-checkout because the machine kept yelling “unexpected item in bagging area” and I swear it was talking about me. I’m standing there in mismatched socks, hair looking like I lost a fight with a leaf blower, holding a bag of off-brand Cheetos and a sympathy card for a friend whose dad just died, and all of a sudden 1 John 4:8 slams into me harder than the beep of that stupid scanner. Not because I’m holy. Because I’m broken and exhausted and the idea that the Creator of everything could still be love when my life feels like a dumpster fire? That wrecked me.
How God Is Love Showed Up When I Was a Total Jerk
Real talk: two months ago I ghosted my best friend of fifteen years because she voted differently than me. Yeah. I’m that Christian. I told myself I was “protecting my peace” which is apparently code for “I’m prideful and scared.” Then last week she showed up at my door with Skyline chili and no lecture, just sat on my disgusting couch while I sobbed about how I hate who I’ve become in this polarized mess of a country. She didn’t fix me. She just… stayed. And I swear I felt God is love in the room like a third person, awkward and quiet and stubborn, refusing to leave even when I’m the worst version of myself. https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/1-john/
Why “God Is Love” Feels Fake in a Hurting World (Until It Doesn’t)
I scroll X and it’s all rage and takes hotter than Texas asphalt. Kids in schools getting shot, politicians screaming, people I used to go to youth group with posting conspiracy memes like it’s their job. And I’m over here whispering, “If God is love, where the heck are you?” Then I remember the night my dad called drunk at 3 a.m. from a casino in West Virginia, crying because he lost everything again, and somehow—don’t ask me how—I heard myself say, “I love you and I’m not going anywhere.” I didn’t feel loving. I felt furious. But the words came out anyway, like they weren’t even mine. That’s when I started suspecting God is love isn’t a feeling. It’s a stubborn choice that keeps choosing when everything in me wants to bail. https://www.cslewis.com/us/the-four-loves/
Little Ways God’s Love Sneaks Up on You (American Edition)
- The Waffle House waitress who called me “baby” when I was clearly falling apart at 6 a.m.
- My neighbor who mows my lawn when my depression gets loud (he’s atheist, btw)
- That one Taylor Swift song that somehow quotes Psalm 46 without meaning to
- Gas station taquitos tasting like grace at 1 a.m. when you’re driving home from the hospital
What I’m Still Screwing Up About God Being Love
But here’s the embarrassing part: every single time I choose the tiniest act of love—like texting “I’m proud of you” to someone who hurt me, or tipping 50% to the Chick-fil-A kid who looks dead inside—something in me unclenches. Like my soul has been holding its breath for four years and finally remembers how to exhale. https://www.thehotline.org/
Look, I don’t have answers. I’m just a thirty-something in Ohio with a half-dead herb garden and a Bible that’s falling apart at Lamentations (because apparently I never make it past the sad parts). But if God is love—and I’m starting to think He actually is—then maybe love isn’t the absence of pain. Maybe it’s the presence of Someone in it.
Anyway. If you’re hurting too, send me a DM or something. We can be messed up together. I’ll probably reply with a voice note because typing feels too formal when your heart’s on the floor. https://mhanational.org/finding-help
And hey—go be stupidly kind to somebody today. Turns out that’s where God is love hides.
