Because He First Loved - M. Laycock

There was once a young woman who looked for love. She didn’t know that’s what she was doing, but she did it with ferocious need. She left her home in search of it, attached herself to many people thinking they would give it to her. She moved from place to place, thinking some day she would find it; she took on various jobs and followed a few careers. She delved into all kinds of creative endeavours. But she was never satisfied. Love was elusive. She began to believe it didn’t really exist.

Then someone challenged her to look in the one place she had avoided. She was convinced she would not find it there, believed she had already looked but been barred from it. Deep in her soul she knew that place was where love lived, but she believed she was not worthy of finding it, so she avoided going to that source.

But eventually she came to the end of her desperate running. Every other source had proven empty and false. There was nowhere else to go, so she turned her face to that source and gave in. “Okay,” she said, “show me that it’s real. Prove to me that love exists for me.”

Then she admitted she had done a lot of things wrong in her lifetime of searching and she asked forgiveness. She didn’t know that was the key that unlocked the barrier.

Nothing happened right away. The clouds didn’t part, lightening didn’t flash, but some time later a miracle occurred. She birthed a child. What grew in her as she cared for that child was a love she could never have dreamed of. It swelled inside her and overflowed. She recognized the miracle and was thankful. She recognized that someone did indeed love her. He loved her enough to intervene in her life and cause a miracle. She was loved and nothing else mattered. She had found the true Source.

She had learned what the word love truly means. It doesn’t mean receiving at all. It means giving.

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him. … We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:16-19).