Oh How He Loves Us

I am so thankful for the love that God has poured out on me. I am back from my honeymoon, and write this as my first blog as a married woman. Crazy.

God is so good to me. I was blessed with a wonderful wedding, a wedding far better than I could have ever imagined, a wedding that I was able to enjoy to the full extent, surrounded by the people I love the most and who love Tim and I. Praise God.

The wedding was beautiful, not because of the physical details, music, or food, but because God blessed it. God was there, as He always is, but I say it because I knew that He was there. Early on in the year, when I was struggling much more with anxiety than I am now, I felt that I would not be capable to get married, I was too plagued with anxieties and worry, I wasn't good enough to be a wife. I felt God gently whisper to me, "I will carry you through". When anxieties about the wedding and marriage came to mind, I also felt God gently tell me, "I am going to make you beautiful for that day, far more beautiful because of what you have been through. I will take you through this and make it better than it would have been without hardships." He did just that, God is faithful. I should have been a nervous wreck leading up to the wedding, but I was surrounded with peace and felt more calm then then I had in a long time.

God also gave us a restful honeymoon. It was so nice to spend a whole week resting with Tim, adjusting to married life, and praising God for giving us such a wonderful day. Words cannot describe how full I felt knowing that God had come through. I spend countless hours worrying about everything, when God came through for me and knew that He would all along. Yet I still doubted. I pray that I hold onto this experience for the future when I feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, or when I doubt that God will come through for me.

I think one thing I am trying to learn this summer, or rather, God is teaching me, is to just let Him love me. Or, as Tim said, accept that He loves me, for I cannot "let" or "allow" Him to love me, He has done so even before I was born, and no amount of my energy can make Him love me any more or less.

For Christ died once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
~1 Peter 3:18

In His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Chris is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filed with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:3-9

The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.
~Zephaniah 3:17

I absolutely fell in love with this song, or rather, fell more in love with God.

How He loves us
by David Crowder

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.