Who Will Love Me For Me?

This morning I was blessed to hear JJ Heller's song Love Me on the radio. The lyrics touched my heart:

He cries in the corner
Where nobody sees
He's the kid with the story
No one would believe
He prays every night
Dear God, won't you please
Could you send someone here
Who will love me

Who will love me for me
Not for what I have done
Or what I will become
Who will love me for me
'Cause nobody has shown me
What love
Love really means

Her office is shrinking
a little each day
She's the woman
Whose husband has run away
She'll go the gym
After working today
Maybe if she was thinner
He would've stayed

And she says
Who will love me for me
Not for what I have done
Or what I will become
Who will love me for me
'Cause nobody has shown me what love
Love really means

He's waiting to die
as he sits all alone
He's a man in a cell
who regrets what's he done
He utters a cry
from the depths of his soul
Oh, Lord, forgive me,
I want to go home
And he heard a voice
Somewhere deep inside
And it said
I know you've murdered
I know you've lied
I have watched you suffer
All of your life
And now that you'll listen
I'll, I'll tell you that I

I will love you for you
Not for what you have done
Or what you will become
I will love you for you
I will give the love
The love that you never knew

I will love you for you
Not for what you have done
Or what you will become
I will love you for you
I will give the love
The love that you never knew

Is that not a beautiful song/story? It so touched my heart. Even though I am blessed to have many people love me, I believe that our humanly love can never compare to the perfect unfailing love of God. He loves us so simply just because we are His. Could it be more simple and innocent? How wonderful is that.

Three things struck me as I listened to that song. First, that God loves me immensely and intensely. He loves me in spite of my wrong and not for my right. He loves me with the little I've accomplished and not for what is to come. He just loves ME. Me. Simply me. This was such a beautiful blessing for me to realize because I spend so much time trying to be loved.  Love doesn't try. It just does. It brought me such joy to realize that.

The next thing I realized is how I have failed my poor husband. I used to ask him why he loved me. I wasn't this size or pretty enough. I wasn't as smart as some people or as funny as someone else. I'm clumsy, I'm careless, and I'm hyper at times. How could he love me? He used to answer....I just love YOU, honey, I don't know the specifics but I do and I will love you forever. I actually used to get frustrated with that. I wanted him to tell me that he loved me with makeup or that he preferred the au naturale look. I wanted him to say I like your natural blonde hair or I prefer it dyed. I wanted him to say that he liked me dressed up or that he liked my sense of style. Or that maybe, just maybe, it was my intelligence or wit or something specific! He has told me what attracted him to me in the first place but other than that, he just says he loves ME...the culmination of all that I am. This morning I realized how much I loved him for that. He has never judged me on a size. He likes me in my glasses or my contacts. He doesn't care if I screw up at work or have a bad day. When I am laughing or crying, his love is generally consistent. Now, I am not saying my husband is a perfect man (sorry, honey!) but he is a good man and I just realized how amazing and important that unconditional general love that he has for me is. Because when I was listening to this song, I realized how badly we want people to love us for us. Then I realized that God and Chris loved me that way and I was so blessed. I am certain that others have or try to love me like that too but I am so reassured by their love for me as me.

The last thing this song reminded me of was that Samantha Peep was loved simply because she was. She existed, she was our daughter, and that was all that we needed to love her. I don't know what she looked like, what her personality woud have been like, what she would have or could have done, but I know this. She was God's child and His awesome and incredible creation of life and quite simply, that calls for love. I hope to remember to love like that always, especially with our future children. To love them just because.

Who will love you for you? Jesus already does. Enough to die for you. Could He do more than that?

I will love you for you, too, if you need to be truly loved.

 ~Shannon