We were created to be loved and to love. “The most significant fact about people is that they were made to love and to be loved. We were designed for relationship,” says psychologist Larry Crabb.

If we were designed to love and to be loved, then it is important to understand what love is.

There are four types of love:

Romance or sexual love, family or parental love, friendship love, God’s unconditional love.

This article is my story of how God’s love has helped me be a better lover.

Is God’s love real? Can you feel it? That’s a question you may have asked yourself at some stage or you’re wondering right now if it is possible?

Imagine asking someone who has just ‘fallen in love’, “Is it real?”

Only the person who has experienced what it is like can really tell you. I have experienced the feeling of both ‘falling in love’ and God’s love and I know they are real! Knowing God’s love has motivated me to produce this website. I want to tell the whole world that His love is real.

When I was a teenager I experienced God’s love for the first time

I discovered that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to earth to suffer and die for my sins. I asked Jesus to forgive me for all the wrong I had done and to fill me with His love, joy and peace.

At another time His presence came into the room so strongly that I could hardly breathe. I did not want the experience to end. Hour after hour, waves of His love came over me. People disappoint, but God’s love has never disappointed me. It is real and dependable. He wants to fill you with His love too.

God loves each of us and has a plan already mapped out for our lives

He affirms this in the Book of Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 13, “I know the thoughts and plans I have for you…thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.”

An unmistakable inner thought filled my mind at the age of sixteen

God told me that after doing nurses’ training and Bible College I would get married and go to Ethiopia to work for Him.

Bill had been a single missionary in Ethiopia for five years when God spoke to him through a strong impression while he was praying. God told him he would give him a wife when he returned to Australia on leave.

On his way home, to save money, he stopped in Singapore and bought the engagement and wedding rings

He had just enough money left to buy a watch. The brand of the watch was ‘Rebecca’. God spoke to him again as he was reading the story of Rebecca in the Bible, and said “Just as I led Abraham’s servant to find a wife for Isaac, I will lead you to your future wife.” (Genesis, chapter 24)

Upon arriving in Australia, he went to visit the Bible College where he had trained. On the way, he heard an inner voice saying, “She is in the college.” He prayed, “God, just as Abraham’s servant asked you to show him the one of your choice for his master, show me now by letting it be the first girl I meet.” I was the first girl he met!

It was a chemical romance

Bill was so sure of God’s choice for him that the next time we met he asked me to marry him.

Both Bill and I come from dysfunctional families.

God’s love and our love for each other has changed our lives

Knowing and experiencing God’s love has helped us give ourselves unselfishly to each other and to other people. Many times this has cost us our energy, time and money. Is the cost worth it? Ask someone who is ‘in love’ if what they do for that person is worth it!

God’s love has helped us forgive ourselves, each other and other people. When we draw upon God’s love we discover we can love the unlovely, be more tolerant, patient, understanding and kind. Even when we fail to draw upon his love and become judgemental, critical and impatient with others, His love reaches out in forgiveness to us. You were created by God to be loved and to love.

Related link
Hindrances that can keep you from experiencing the love of God:
https://breakfreetoday.org/past-loss