I didn't always own my faith. For that to happen, I'd have to understand God (at least as well as we can as humans), and I definitely had a skewed image of him for most of my life. God seemed like this big magical man in the sky that I saw a lot of people speaking to and folding their hands together for. He seemed scary and mythical, and I imagined that he had a booming voice that would shake the whole Earth whenever he spoke. I was completely convinced that if I ever heard God speaking to me, he would deliver his advice and wisdom to me in that commanding voice.
It took me a while to realize that when God speaks, he whispers. It's not an obvious, pointed set of words shouted at you. God is calm. God is quiet. God speaks to you through the gentle breeze. A sunny day. A soft murmur in your ear. A fuzzy feeling in your stomach that tells you everything is going to be okay.
God is all-powerful, yes. And power can come in the form of storms and screams and lots of loud things. But I now understand that God wasn't just an entity of power. He is an entity of love. Psalm 136:26 says "Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever." This means that God's love for us isn't conditional or fickle. It's pure, true, and doesn't give up. I think we could all stand to love one another like this.
As a child, and even in my early teenage years, I didn't understand this all-consuming, never-failing love. To me, God was "the man upstairs." Not "the man upstairs who loves me." Don't get me wrong, I was taught in church that God loved me. I sang it over and over again, I made crafts that conveyed the message, and I listened to the priests and preachers tell me. But for some reason, I didn't take the message to heart.
I'm not sure what caused me to realize this beautiful love was present in my life. Around the time I realized this, a lot of wonderful blessings came into my life. God was so good to me. And even now, as the seasons change and trials are testing my faith, He still is so good to me. I also used to think that hardships meant that God didn't love me. It's still difficult for me sometimes to face hard times and remember that He still loves me through all of them. But I've realized that no matter what I face, my faith is enough to get me through it.
God has wonderful plans for me, whether they line up with mine for my life or not. Believing in God and His love for me has allowed me to develop a much larger capacity for believing in others, as well as believing in myself. God has never given up. And because of this, neither will I.
