What If God’s Love Isn’t Enough?
This week’s post is in response to a comment I received on a former post, “How to Overcome Feeling Unloved or Unwanted”. I felt that a reply at the bottom of the post wouldn’t do him justice. In that post I shared that the best way I know to overcome feeling unloved and unwanted is to come to the understanding and realization that we are loved and wanted by God. A gentleman left me a comment, and he made a very good point. His comment:
“Ms. Robbins, with all due respect, what you say sounds excellent on paper. Unfortunately, here in the real world, no matter how much love God may have for me, it’s not keeping me warm at night. It’s not filling this empty spot in my bed. In other words, God’s love is no substitute for a warm body nor the touch of a woman who wants and desires me.”
I get what he’s saying. It’s almost as if he’s asking, “What if God’s love isn’t enough?” He’s not alone in feeling that way. I have also asked that question. In that post, I also discussed how Leah felt this way too. It’s not uncommon. It’s not absurd for him to ask this. It’s very normal. I am happy to say now that in my own searching, I have found the answer to that question.
First, I’d like to address his first statement. What I write here at this site is never meant it to just sound good on paper. My intent is to always give practical steps and applications to walk out in everyday life. This is because I do live in the real world, and I know there is a real world (full of a lot of hurt and a lot of crap). I’ve been through a lot of it myself. Most of what I share and teach isn’t just from a “teacher/professor of life” point of view. It’s from the perspective of a student who has been through a lot of these things myself and about how God has navigated me through them. Sometimes I’ve navigated through them successfully…sometimes not so much, and that’s where I get to share from my failures. What I write is from MY real world and what I’ve learned, and God has called me to share it with others to hopefully help them too.
Now onto the part about “God’s love is no substitute”. He makes a very good point. I truly get it. I know that pain. I know what that longing and emptiness feel like. I know that feeling that something’s missing. I remember when all of my friends were getting married, and I was single. Everyone else seemed so happy. They seemed to have something I was missing. It made me so sad to see couples. And weddings…they would set me into a major funk and depression. For a while, I even refused to go to weddings because they were so depressing for me. Isn’t that awful? I now feel horrible about that because I see in hindsight how extremely selfish that was of me. I should have celebrated in others’ happiness instead wallowing in my own sorrow and self-pity.
Now, I’m happily married (for nearly 16 years now—wahoo!!). However, I CAN’T tell you that it’s always been happy, happy, joy, joy or that I’ve never experienced loneliness. Marriage or relationships don’t exempt you from feelings of emptiness or loneliness—even with having that person to share life with and that person who wants and desires you. I heard somebody say once, “There’s only one thing worse than being single and lonely. It’s being married and lonely.” Even in my marriage I have experienced some of the deepest pits of feeling unloved and unwanted. Some of it stemmed from marriage troubles, but quite honestly a lot of it was due to my own insecurities and in trying to make my husband fill a void in me that only God’s love can fill. Although, I experienced these immense feelings of being unloved and unwanted, I was also able to overcome them.
Oswald Chambers
God showed me that it was through Him that I could overcome feeling unloved and unwanted. God showed me that if I will always fill myself up with His love first, then everything else I get from others is just an overflow on top of an already full cup (an analogy I learned from Beth Moore). And when I’m already full and overflowing, THEN I can be better at overflowing that love onto others. We have to be filled with God first.