My God is Love

As my first year of college draws to a close, I am reminded of how changed I am from the girl I was when I began. God has shown me so much in these two semesters. As I look through my journal, I see in ink my struggles and my deliverances. I think the two journal entries I share today show my greatest discovery of these past seven months.

January 18, 2011
Tonight in Collide, I was angry at God. We watched a video promoting missions in Asia. My heart ached for these people. They are already hurting and poor, but to add to that, they invest their broken lives in lies. The video showed Christians being persecuted, killed for believing the truth. And at the end, it showed orphans, unloved innocents. It left me asking "why?" Why them? Why not me? Why would God allow this? After the video was the message, then the time for worship. The band strikes their first notes and I am angry. It's "How He Loves." No He doesn't. Why would He allow this suffering? How can He love us, in our perfect chapel with our group of Christians and ignore the bleeding and broken in the streets? How can He love? How is that love? I sat while all those around me stood; they praising, me glaring at God and shaking my head. My heart and soul mourned for those unloved, and my body wept.

I went on in that entry to state that I knew God loved, even though I didn't understand it, but those were just words. My heart was hardened against that love for two more days. Then my God softened me.

January 22, 2011
Two nights ago, we had our full practice for Singers, we ran through our entire service. During the first few songs, I didn't really worship, I was still angry. Then it came time for the offertory which Mrs. Tracy plays on the piano. We all sat as she played her song, a combination of the two hymns "Oh How He Loves You and Me" and "Oh How I Love Jesus." I felt so frustrated! Again?! Why must everything be about God's love? Then it hit me. Many of our songs speak of the cross. It must be love. There is no other reason that God would become man. There is no other reason Jesus, perfection, would bear the sins of the world, separated from His Father. Why else would he be beaten, pierced, torn, mocked? Why else would He do all of this just for a relationship? It has to be love. There's no other answer. I don't understand it. I don't know why people are suffering persecution, or why babies are starving. But I know He loves.

A day before I wrote the above entry, I decided, on a whim, to write a poem. The poem ended up being about my week.

God is love?

I look at my life.

I see such neat rows.

Where You put everything in place,

Where Your hand is so evident.

I say, “God is love.”

I go to church.

I see my family all sitting in their pews.

We sing together.

Eyes closed, hands raised, I say

“God is love.”

We sit to eat.

We hold hands.

We speak grateful words.

We eat.

And we say, “God is love.”

But then I see faces,

Faces streaked with tears,

Homes of cardboard and tin,

Meals of stinking garbage.

I see this and say,

“Is this love?”

I see swollen bellies and matted hair.

I gaze into hauntingly hollow eyes.

I watch the children suffer for what they never did.

I see and say,

“God, you call this love?”

I go to my church.

I hear my songs.

But now I don’t even stand.

I sit and shake my head,

Angry at such love.

Then I remember,

My God bled.

My God hung.

My God died,

For this, for us.

How can He not be love?