God’s Redeeming Love

 By Lynn Bourgeois

There was once a time when I was a young teenager that I worshiped God and thought I knew what faith was. I thought it meant doing lots of jobs in the church, leading the youth fellowship, helping with the youth club, completing tasks to prove something, but I really didn’t know anything then. I didn’t know that Father God loved me with a love beyond anything I could ever know and I didn’t know I could trust him completely and that whenever I did things for him, all he wanted was for me to feel the peace in doing it and if i didn’t feel that peace, then maybe that wasn’t what he had in mind for me to do just now. 

You see when I left home at the age of 18 my task orientated love of God had burned me out... and I didn’t want it any more..I ran away from God because I didn’t understand that he loved me, and I didn’t understand how amazing that love really was.

I was out in a big open world then, and I wanted to be free to try everything. Night after night I would party and get drunk because it brought me joy, for a little while... I fell in and out of relationships because all I ever wanted was to feel loved and needed, and to be in love made me feel worthy for a short time. But, even with all those things I did to push away God, he never stopped pursuing me, so many times when I could have got myself into trouble he protected me with his love.

I had an amazing life in normal terms; a blessed life, I got married; had an incredible job. I was successful; I travelled all over the world; I saw beautiful sights, but always there was something missing, somehow in the midst of it all I would sit gazing over the most incredible views feeling lonely, and unloved...

Then 10 years ago my life fell apart, my mum died, and the following year my husband left me and I got into the deepest darkest place I had ever been. It was then that God gently stretched out his hand, and offered me his love, and this time I took it...

For all those things I did that many would have condemned me for, he never judged me... he just loved me more. I gave my life to God again at an Alpha course 8 years ago and every step since then he has been with me. At that stage I had met a another young man and a we had had our first child together... and as soon as I committed my life back to God,  all the fears from my childhood welled up again... all those lies the devil wanted me to believe....What if I had to get too busy and didn’t have any time for myself any more...What if he didn’t accept me because I wasn’t married?...I cried out to him “ take it easy on me” I can remember listening to a song of that title over and over again.

One Sunday at a church service, shortly after giving my life back to God again I can remember bursting into tears, because my partner was strictly against marriage and I was sure God would just walk away from me again....Two lovely ladies, took me to one side and prayed with me and we handed it to God to sort out...and do you know what? He heard my cry and I don’t know how he did it, but, within a month my partner, decided we should get married.

And every step of the road along the way it has been like that, I step forward tentatively and he lifts me up and answers. Sometimes the answers don’t come straight away, sometimes they hurt a little, but he always answers in the most amazing ways.

All those years ago, I might have stopped loving Him, but he has never stopped loving me, and I trust him now beyond compare, and I know He will never leave me, He will never stop loving me no matter how many mistakes I have made, or continue to make, and now I know that I will never stop loving Him.

His love redeems everything, He has used every wrong decision I have ever made for good in the most remarkable way. He has never asked me to do anything, I have always just wanted to do things because it brings me joy to see Him happy, and it brings me joy to see other people set free to blossom.

And do you know what still throws me the most, is that everything I have done in His service, just feels right, like I was always made to do this, even though some of the things I do, I was just trying them out because I never really believed I could do them. It turns out that God made me to be this person that I never believed myself to be and it brings me such joy to be that person.

I may not have a perfect life but I am happier now, than I have ever been before, because I am in love with a God who will always be there and it blows me away that all He really wants is my love in return, and do you know what? Being this much in love is the happiest place on earth that anyone could ever be.