The Kind of Love That Floors You...

I spent many years in the wilderness... a good many... possibly, in spite of being brought up a Catholic, the first 35 years of my life.. because, throughout that time, I can quite comfortably state that I had never experienced unconditional love so shocking and powerful that you can barely stand... Things changed when I gave up fighting life and started to pray last year, a lot. I was not yet back at Church but I was praying a lot for other peoples' happiness, for their love and their families, and the recipient of my sincere prayer was "God", although little did I realise at this point, that I didn't know Him at all...

At 36,  I knew that I had to go back to Church -  shutting myself away and praying privately was somehow no longer "good enough", I felt I was being urged to become more public in my prayer, and it was around this time, whilst rediscovering Church, that I came face to face with Unconditional Love.

I had already been guided towards salvation by a beautiful friend of mine and had experienced some surprising emotions at a worship event, but this was like Ramped Up Supercharged Supernatural Love... 

I decided to go to a friend's baptism, it was a little way to drive, but this friend was very special to me and I was very proud of her and wanted to celebrate how special the day was, so I drove to the Church where she was being baptised, full of excitement about her new experience. Worship was led by a band and as the songs started, my first experience of Unconditional Love began...

As I was singing, I started to feel something very powerful, the most immense feelings of Love began washing over me... I was stunned  - what on earth was going on? Why the heck was I feeling these feelings? They had, I can assure you, come totally unexpectedly and out of nowhere. That these feelings were from God was undeniable because the Love was supernatural and powerful, beyond any eartly sense, and I was stunned that He had found the time to converse with me, when He had these baptisms to concentrate on. I hadn't come here for this!!! What on earth????

And so I found myself fighting, "I'm not worthy of this" and crying inwardly, " I have done this with my life and that with my life", "I've been this person, that person" I protested but the feelings just grew stronger and stronger and every protestation was met with the revelation "But I love you Louise" and there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say...  I was being floored. My throat ached...  It was everything I could do to prevent myself from falling to the floor and sobbing uncontrollably and I couldn't understand where it was all coming from!

This wasn't your average being 'touched by' a service or wiping away the odd tear or two, or simply the shared joy of someones' beautiful day, it was something much more that that. It was my first face to face with God's Love, and when He met me with it, there was nothing I could do, but tentatively stumble towards Following Him...

More on Unconditional Love in my next blog when I will tell you the Story of The Pink Bible...