Damp Pillows in April by Gamelihle Ncube
Love illuminates all the beauty inside of us
It was the darkest, loneliest time of my existence – March to April 2020. I was caged with the rest of the world, isolated in our little hamlets, cut off from neighbours and strangers. Petrified by the grim statistics, and to think that a type of flu was the cause of all this!
However, my darkness had more to it than the prevailing scourge. Everything had collapsed. I had just been rejected by a girl I liked; I dare even say loved. I had seen my future with her, our children, and our life; however, in my dreams, it was as far as it would go. It hit me by surprise, as we seemed to be getting along well, praying together, ministering together, and, like guitar strings, singing together.
Perhaps even more disturbing was the constant, unshakeable feeling that I was missing something in my relationship with God. I had fasted, prayed, evangelized, and ministered, but I just wasn’t happy. The feeling had hitched a ride on my back and wasn’t planning on getting off.
I felt like such a failure. I felt unloved. I felt I had disappointed God, that I deserved the bitter remains of this world. It was during this time, one sunny day, my head resting on my damp pillow when it dawned on me. I cannot explain how, and I will not insult the experience by trying. There, in that lonely abyss, the light pierced through my broken soul.
I AM LOVED
I AM LOVED
I AM LOVED
I could not believe my eyes, reading the often-quoted scriptures, finally realizing a truth that I had overlooked for years. I was loved, and this love wasn’t based on anything I did. I had been found worthy of dying for; I was loved, just me. It’s amazing!
Rom 3:23-24 NHEB 23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; 24 being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Jer 31:3 WEB Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
I had been “working” to please God for years. I thought He’d reject me like everyone else if I didn’t. I’d laboured under a misapprehension as to the true picture of God. He isn’t peering down from Heaven with a whip, ready to lash my back when I make a mistake, no! He is LOVE, that’s who He is.
Eph 2:8-9 KJV 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
He knows I’m a sinner, and He loved me as a sinner. I can’t be a sinner. Out of His love, He paid for all my sins, so if I believe in Jesus, in His eyes, I am faultless, every sin having been accounted for on the Cross.
Rom 5:8 WEB But God commends his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
I AM Loved as I am; I don’t have to try to be something else. He just said, believe in Me, and you’ll have eternal life. GOD is not a liar. All these years, I had added my own requirements to attain eternal life.
I did things like prayer, fasting, evangelism, and studying the Bible, more out of fear that I’d miss eternal life if I didn’t. It was a life of fear. That if I didn’t pray, then the enemy would destroy me that night. (Because I didn’t realise that God loves me)
Gal 2:16 NHEB yet knowing that no one is justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law.
All those are great things to do, but they shouldn’t be done out of fear, but rather through the realization that only believing in Jesus gives eternal life. Consequently, they begin to flow out of love. I mean, who wouldn’t want to know the One who loves them to the point of death more and more? Who wouldn’t want to talk to Him? Who wouldn’t want to see others set free as well and know that love?
The more I read, the more I realize the simplicity of it all. This Man wants to keep me eternally, and I stand only by grace.
Jude 1:24-25 ISV 24 Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand joyful and faultless in his glorious presence, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time and for all eternity! Amen.
I’m dumbfounded every time I realize how good this is; God really wants me to know that He loves me.
He says,
John 15:9 ISV Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. So abide in my love.
And there are self-evident fruits that come with abiding in His Love:
Gal 5:22-23 ISV 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
I am loved, treasured, valued by God Himself, loved to the point of death. It still seems too good, but the more I read the Bible, the more I’m convicted of this truth.
Have you ever thought that God sees you as beautiful, that He desires to be with YOU?
Despite your sins, He was willing to pay for them all on the Cross, so there wouldn’t be anything between the two of you. You accept this cleansing, this love by just believing in Him.
John 3:16 NHEB For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
And, oh please, our greatest need is love, and we need it every day, and so we get to look at Love (the Word) every day, we get to talk to and hear Love every day.
I close with what is my favourite portion of scripture at the moment. (I say at the moment because I keep finding more and more beauty in the Word)
1 John 4:9-10 ISV 9 This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent his unique Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.