The Wonders of Your Love Reflection – Stephanie Engelman
The father loves you. Yes, YOU! He loves you so much that he knows and pays attention to every little detail about you. He knows the number of hairs on your head (cf Luke 12:7)! He knows when you sit, and when you rise, and he knows what you’re going to say before you even think to say it (cf Psa 139:1-6) because he adoresyou so much that every minutiae of your existence is of the greatest importance to him.
In Isaiah 49:15-16, our loving Father tells us,
“Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.
See, upon the palms of my hands I have engraved you.”
You are so valuable, so precious to him that he has carved you into his very palms so as never to forget you even for a moment.
Look around you and you will see the proof. The beautiful greens of the grass, and the leaves of the trees? God didn’t make those for his own pleasure, or for that of the birds. He made them for you! The lovely sound of the bubbling brook, or the rain on the roof? Our Father didn’t create those melodies for the angels, or for the fish. He made them for you!
“Creation is revealed… as the first and universal witness to God’s all-powerful love.” (CCC, n. 288) Moreover, the particular part of creation that you can see, hear, smell, taste and feel, was made for you, as a witness to His love. God created it with all of mankind in mind, meaning billions upon billions of people across the ages. But were there to be only a million to enjoy it, wouldn’t he have still created it? Or a thousand? One hundred? Indeed, just as the Almighty was willing to spare Sodom if he could find but ten righteous people within it (Gen 18:16-33), I believe he would have created the earth in all its beauty, even if there were only going to be ten people to enjoy it. And he would have been especially pleased, if one of those ten was you.
This beauty culminates in the heart breaking beauty of the cross. As Christ told his disciples, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”(John 15:13) Christ died once, for all. But if the only person who’s salvation was to be gained through his death was yours, would he still have allowed himself to be hung upon that cross?
Yes, he would.
And that is the greatest wonder of God’s love.
Going Deeper…
May I suggest delving deeper into the wonders of God’s awesome love for you by meditating on the love described in any of the scripture verses mentioned above, or these beautiful verses:
Allow God’s word to soak into your heart, permeating your being, knowing that these verses are God’s love letter, written for you.
All rights reserved, Allison Gingras & Stephanie Engelman 2016
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Stephanie Engleman | Stephanie Engelman spent the first decades of her life as a very lukewarm Christian, but quickly caught fire for Christ when she was called home to the Catholic Church. That fire led her to write a best-selling Catholic young adult novel titled A Single Bead, a story of faith awakened by prayer. Stephanie is a wife and mother to five children, whose lives changed drastically last November when her husband suffered a near-fatal heart attack and subsequent serious brain injury. Stephanie blogs about faith, foibles, and the struggles of adapting to life following brain injury at www.afewbeadsshort.com |
