A SHOWER OF LOVE
Mareena Joseph from the USA shares her experience of God’s love.
MY EXPERIENCE
I remember one time when I had been going through a dull period in my spiritual life. I missed the presence of Jesus so much, I knew that He was there and that He would never leave or forget me. This little light of faith kept me going and helped me to persevere in prayer. One day after I had been sitting in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, as I left the Church I began crying like a child who had lost their mother, when suddenly these words came into my head, “To whom or what should I compare the love that You showered upon me God? Can I compare it to the top most mountains or the vast sky? There is no one like You, no one equal to You Jesus.” After hearing this voice echoing in my soul, my heart was filled with divine love and something changed within me. Suddenly thoughts of divine love embraced me fully, I had a glimpse of how much God really loves me and I became so joyful. As I reached the outer door of the church, on that beautiful sunny day, it started raining. Even today I believe, it was only for me. God the Father wanted to shower me with His love and I was so thirsty for that moment. O Lord, how great is Your love! In the desert of my heart, in that emptiness I felt the presence of Jesus to be closer than ever before.
WANTING THE BEST
I remember, when I was in kindergarten, I asked my mother if I could have a bow for my hair like the other girls in my class. She bought me one, but it was expensive and much better than those that my friends had. I started crying and asked for a cheaper one because I didn't want one that was better than theirs. In my anger I broke the bow and my mother said to me, “Do you know how much it cost me? Don’t you understand that it was the best one that I could find?” At the time I didn't know and I didn't care because I knew the sort that I wanted. As I’ve grown older this incident keeps coming back to me and it makes me realise that my parents always wanted to give me the best and do their best for me. It might not be what I wanted but it is what they knew was best for me. This is what God’s love for us is like. If we can just grasp a little bit of how great God the Father loves us it is truly awe inspiring. God the Father is mighty and omnipotent, but at the same time, for me He is my dad, who knows what is best for me.
SELF GIVING LOVE
We can easily be tempted to exchange the love that we receive from God the Father with cheaper, momentary pleasures. There are so many temptations. Our culture teaches us more about self-love than about self-giving love. There is often a great contradiction between the self-giving love that we experience in our homes from our parents and family and the way that the culture and media portrays love. This is a dilemma for many of us. In today's world, as never before, it is a challenge to accept the concept of self-giving love so that we can “Love our neighbour as ourselves.” (Matthew 22:39) We need to be filled with God’s divine love, only then can we love everyone as He loves us.
WHY BELIEVE?
People often say, “How can I believe in something that I have never seen?” We live in a scientific age, where everyone wants to know the rationale for everything, a world that promotes atheism. But there are many questions that cannot be answered. There are many concepts that we may not understand but we accept them. All of us have a surname, a family name, but do we really know the history of how this last name came to us? We have never met those ancestors who all bore the same name and passed it down the generations. Yet we believe that we belong to a specific family tree. In other words we follow the tradition and carry it on to the next generation. But why can't we accept the faith that has been given to us by our parents, who know how much it has helped them, and who want to pass on their blessings to us?
PROOF OF HISTORY
How can we believe that we have a God who loves us so much? We need to look back at two thousand years of history. In Acts 5:38-39 Gamaliel, one of the Jews, warned his fellow persecutors to leave the Christians alone because if it was just a human undertaking then it would not last long. But if it was all part of God’s plan then nothing could stop them and the Jews would not want to fight against God. History has proved that the Church is a Divine institution that has flourished. It is Christ’s body on earth and rather than being diminished it has in fact been strengthened by persecution. Archaeological studies throughout history have backed up the Bible stories. More than anything else we know that God loves us because He answers our heartfelt prayers.
THE DEPTH OF LOVE
You are probably very familiar with the Bible verse, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) This is a beautiful expression of what God did for us, but to be able to really understand the depth of love conveyed by these words may take us a lifetime.
I will make them and the region around my hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.
Ezekiel 34:26
