God Loves Me

I have been thinking of God’s love lately. The very fact that God loves me. God loves me! The very Creator of this universe. The One who holds the world in His hands. How can that be?

I’m a sinner. I’m not perfect. I’m often needy, looking for a Savior. I don’t do many things very well…and yet…God loves me.

Years ago, when I was a newlywed, I heard God’s voice. My husband and I had been married for about a year. We were both fresh out of college and working at jobs for a few short years. I had just started work at a school and didn’t count on not having work in the summer. We were low men on the totem poles at our jobs, so even though we had two jobs, we weren’t paid well. Well the summer came and my job ended at the school in June. It wasn’t a permanent end, it was just for the summer. My husband’s cousin got me a temporary job to work for her while she went back east for the summer. That was for the month of July. So that was good, I had a job for July. Well that ended and I needed employment for August and part of September. Where would I find a job for a month and a half? I started to panic. WE NEEDED MONEY! We can’t live on one income! I laugh at that now, because we have been living on one income for over 18 years now. But at the time, we were lowly grunts, not making a whole lot of money. We had rent to pay and a car payment. Ack.

Well I was in sheer panic. But not to be deterred, I drove down this main street that had all these hotels. I figured I could work as a desk clerk for any hotel. How hard could that be? I got nothing. Nobody would take me on. I decided to try restaurants. I’d worked 4 summers at a restaurant-I had some waitressing skills. I got nothing. Frustrated and feeling a bit down from all those rejections, I plopped on the couch and started crying. And I cried, and cried, and cried. Sobbing would be more like it. I thought of us living on the mean streets of California. They would take our car away because we couldn’t make the payments. We would starve to death. We would be two college educated kids homeless, with a huge debt to pay for student loans. How could we look our friends in the eye, when we would be flat broke? What would we do? Where could we go? My husband still had his job, where would he shower in the mornings to clean up for work? What could we do? I kept crying. I was all by myself at home, sobbing on my couch with the yellow pages open on my lap.

In the midst of my sobbing I heard a voice. I was by myself. It was a male voice. The voice said, “Wendy, I love you.” That immediately stopped my crying. I looked around me, nobody was there. The voice said it only once. The voice called me by my name. “Wendy, I love you.” I knew Who it was that said He loved me. I stopped crying. Like a little kid who is being consoled by a parent, I just sat on the couch in awe of the One who said He loved me. That’s all He said. He just reminded me that He loved me. And if He loved me, why would He leave me on the streets to die? He wouldn’t. He loved me. I had gone off the rails and He simply reminded me that He loved me.

He didn’t promise me a job. Money didn’t suddenly appear in the middle of the living room. The yellow pages didn’t start flipping over to the one job I should call. A giant finger didn’t start writing on the wall, telling me what would happen next. My God simply told me that He loved me. And He used my name when He did.

Well a few days later I got a job as a waitress at the Bob’s Big Boy down the street. They had no trouble hiring me for those short weeks. I think I made more money there, than I did at my main job for the school. It was fun bringing home all that cash from tips. But I was a changed person. I heard God’s voice tell me He loved me. I’ve never had a feeling of panic like that again. I’ve always trusted God would care for us. No exceptions.