When I was 9 years old, I had to face the hardest and most confusing thing a child can go through. It was a warm afternoon after school. As my mother, sister and I walked into our home we saw huge hole in our living room wall where the tv used to hang. We continued in cautiously, my mom walked into her room and saw empty drawers, a half empty closet where my dads’ clothes used to hang. My mom and I were shoved into a reality that my dad had left and probably was not coming back. As we went to sleep that night I thought back on all the memories that I shared with my dad, all the times he made me feel loved, worth it, and cared about. The only question that came to my 9 year old brain was: “If he loved me and I was his princess, why did he leave?”
What is Love?
Before you continue… I want you to think about how many times you have said the word “love”. Did you say it towards someone, a movie, or even a random object in the store? When you said it did you mean it? When you said it did you think about the meaning of love? Love nowadays is a word that is just thrown around by people, without really meaning it. Love is the intense feeling of deep affection, as the dictionary describes it. During a Girls Only prayer night we had during the summer our mentor Judy asked us “What do you think love is?” I had never really thought about what love really truly was till she asked us that question. When I really thought about it I raised my hand to share. I think love is when you can trust in someone, be who you are around them, and someone who never leaves when things get hard. Almost everyone shared their own answers and each girl had their own definition based on their experiences. My definition came from my experience of having the one person who is supposed to love you leave.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud...it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Searching For Love
As humans, there’s a natural instinct to want love, to want affection, and to feel worthy. For me as a girl who went through what I went through, I felt unloved even though I had friends and family who did love me. For me having my dad leave made me feel like he didn’t love me and I wasn’t worth his love. I felt this way because if it was so easy for someone who is supposed to love you unconditionally just leave then it would be that much easier for everyone else to leave too. I went searching for love in all the wrong places, I searched for love in the wrong friends and in guys who made me feel special. Now in searching for love from guys that I thought loved me and I thought I loved them when I didn’t. I loved the idea of feeling special and feeling worthy of love. In this case I just got hurt more and resulted in feeling less loved. When in reality I should have been drawing closer to the one who loved me unconditionally, uncontrollably, and recklessly, God.
Believing I Was Loved
I started to believe that I was loved when I truly started to get to know God and who he is. Being loved became a reality. I thought about how he loves me through my sins, he loves me through my bad times, through my good times, and he loves me for me. God made this known through his love letter to us which is his word, the Bible. I realized that no matter what I went through or how many times I pushed him away he never left. In Deuteronomy 31:8 it says “ The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” I did not feel loved overnight, it took me time to believe that I was loved. When I finally believed that I was loved, it was the best feeling I could ever experience. Being loved my God made me feel my worth. The reason for this is because the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords loves me for me. He knows me by name. I am his daughter and despite my shortcomings, I am still His and I am still LOVED.
If like me you have ever felt unloved, or worthless remember that you are loved and you are worth being loved. Don’t forget that he is always there even when you feel like he isn’t, no matter how much or how far you try and push him away he will never leave you. Once you have experienced God’s love, you will never want to go back to what you used to feel like.
“His love endures forever” Psalm 118:2
Love,
Brianna Ruiz