Truth is Truth is Truth

Truth. I like it. I like it a lot. I like it because it is unwavering, constant. In the face of any circumstances, storms or sunshine, politics, people and things of this world - truth is truth. It doesn't change.

So let's talk about some truth, the ultimate truth. The truth that is so simple to say, so simple to write but so hard to really, truly, 100% grasp at it's fullest.

God loves me.

Yes, we've all heard it. Growing up in the church I heard it more than anything I think. Starting with that first all important Bible verse, "For God so loved the world..." But in the past few years I have really been able to start to understand this and to live it. Here are a few reminders of truth, truth that we can state and say OUT LOUD as a defense, as an offense, as a reminder, as just a way to acknowledge and say, "Thank you Lord."

John 13:1 "It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end."

Peter denying Jesus - Luke 23:60-62 : "Peter replied, 'Man, I don't know what you're talking about!' Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord has spoken to him: 'Before the rooster crows
today, you will disown me three times.' And he went outside and wept bitterly."

If you are like me, for years I never read these verses as a testimony of love. No, in my mind it was a testimony of condemnation. I know now that is not the God we serve. That look was a look of love and of understanding. Can you imagine?

John 15:9 - "I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love."

John 16:27 - "for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God."

John 11:32-36 - When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. "Where have you put him?" he asked them. They told him, "Lord, come and see." Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, "See how much he loved him!"

I love Ann Voskamp's writing and the pictures that she can draw with her words, powerful reminders of just how much God loves us in her book One Thousand Gifts, "I feel Him hold me- a flailing child tired in Father's arms. And I can hear Him soothe soft, "Are your ways My ways,
child? Can you eat My manna, sustain on My mystery? Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world - because My flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched?"

Another one of Ann Voskamp's paragraphs I have highlighted when I start to question this truth of love - "To read His message in moments, I'll need to read His passion on the page; wear the lens of the Word, to read His writing in the world. Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading
the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes that look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, "I know. I know." The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not an abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain."

He did it because he loves us. Not just words on the page and skip right by b/c we've read the story whatever Bible "story" one hundred times. No!! It's TRUTH. A very real love.

He loves you. Nothing will change that. He loves you. Did you hear that? HE LOVES YOU. Truth.

- Tiffany Adams