God's Love

I have heard the questions "How do I know that God really does love me?" or "How can a loving God allow His children to suffer?" or other questions along those lines for most - if not all - of my life. To be honest, I have questioned the same thing before. I think that the answer that is usually given is something along the lines of "we are His children; of course He loves us," but that doesn't always seem like enough. After all, there are parents who abuse their children. How can we prove that God isn't the same way?" I'm going to try to answer these questions to the best of my ability, but before I begin: I can give you all of the answers I can come up with, but you have to actually choose to accept it or it is worthless.

To start with, God is perfect. Perfection is being whole. The parents who abuse their children have a fundamental brokenness to them, which I believe is usually psychopathy, a chemical imbalance in the brain, or being under the influence of something that decreases their compassion and/or increases their anger. This may stem from some sort of abuse, either they were abused and are continuing it with their children or they abuse some sort of substance. This makes these parents incomplete, or not whole, therefore not perfect. Comparing complete to incomplete is not fair on either end as you should not expect a broken person to act whole nor should you declare something whole to be broken.

Secondly, we have our agency. God loves us enough to not control us. Unfortunately, this means that people have their agency to use and abuse others. However, if we will learn from people like Jacob in the book of Mormon, our afflictions and trials can help us be more compassionate. So, God lets us suffer because He loves us. That is hard for people to hear and may even seem contradictory.

Many people seem to believe that if God truly loves us, He would interfere more than He does. That He would stop abuse or other afflictions. However, that can compromise our agency and takes away our chance to learn and improve.

God wants to help and heal us. Moses 7 talks about how God weeps because we chose to turn away Him. He cannot help us if we do not let Him. He can't do everything for us; that wouldn't actually help us. We are on this earth to learn. We don't really learn if someone else is doing everything for us. God will gladly help us along the way, but we have to actually walk the steps.

Psalms 30:2 says, "O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou has healed me." God hears us in our afflictions. He wants to help us; He wants to heal us, but I think that sometimes we get so caught up in our own pain that we don't notice His hand or we forget to go to Him for help. God truly does love us and wants to help us.

Because of some of the trials I have gone through in my life, I deal with depression. Over the summer, I really struggled to believe that anyone cared about me, let alone love me. One day, I was alone in my room with my back to the door and the lights turned off. I felt as if there was no hope. That there was no point or purpose to me being on earth. I know that we aren't supposed to ask for signs, but I asked God for some sort of sign that someone cared about me. Almost immediately, I felt as though someone were giving me a hug, despite the fact that no one else was in my room. I got confirmation that God loves me, that I have a purpose, and that I am worth a lot to God. A few minutes later, I got a text from a friend who said that they felt that they needed to check up on me, reminding me that someone on this earth still cared.

Since then, I have felt God's love pretty much daily but in much smaller ways. I have seen it in something someone says, a song I sing, a scripture I read, or a thought that come to mind.

We are going to be put through fire. We are going to feel beaten down. But no matter what, God is always willing to be there for us. He really does love us, even if we feel undeserving or if we feel that there is no way that He could love us. God is watching over all of us. Honestly, if it wasn't for His love, I don't think I would still be alive today.

If you do not believe that God loves you, I want you to ask Him. Ask Him to show you His love then pay attention. He loves each and every one of you and wants to make you happy. I cannot force you to believe anything that I - or anyone else- says, but I hope that you know God's love for you, even if you don't understand how or why.