God loves me. A crisp, distinctly German feel adorned a beautiful morning. We were waiting on yet another early train to whisk us away to another destination. Unsuspecting, I saw it. It was a simple express train headed in the other direction with birds forming the shape of a bird, but immediately my soul sprung into a delight I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

If God cares for the birds and the beasts, how much more does he care for us?
For me?

I am loved dearly. This is the beginning of love, that we realize we have been loved since the Beginning. Before there was time, He created me, every detail down to the number of hairs on my head. As I type this, the incredulity of it all overwhelms, bringing me to tears. I am loved. Infinitely.

I need His love. It’s His love that makes days of hellish travel brief and momentary. It’s His love that makes early mornings after waking from a lack of sleep not bearable, but beautiful. It’s His love that pieces my heart back together after I’ve dragged it through the mud and shattered it violently on the rocks of my pride. I could not survive without Him.

God provides. What God took in my original schedule, He’s giving me back bountifully in perspective and adulation of His real love. After a hard day of travel, He gives us a train that not only takes us to the next city, but stops exactly where we need to meet our host. Though I curse and complain, He softens my heart to not only type, but hold back the sweet tears of recognition.

God is good. He does not give me the train that I so desperately wanted or the bed with my name on it. He gives me an experience that helped me to appreciate the next bed and see with clearer vision my inflexibility and my selfishness. He gave me a friend to help usher me through this process. He’s given me this life that has constantly whispered me toward maturity. All because this is goodness. I don’t understand, I can merely appreciate.

God loves me, fiercely. It wasn’t until I missed a train in a city I was supposed to spend no more than an hour, miles from anything recognizable that I could see this. I need this Love, as without it I am ruined. Absolutely. God provides always. He works out the situations that shouldn’t work, but in a way that trumps expectations. God is good, but He’s good in a way that surpasses understanding. I cannot understand good, but I can certainly recognize and appreciate it. It bears repeating: God loves me. And I now love Him.