For the Love of God

The bible and stories of the saints are filled with exclamations of the love of God, of being in love with God. As I read them, I always wondered what it felt like to be in love with God; it was unfathomable to me. It hadn’t been that long since I considered myself to be an atheist. Though I had begun to know God’s Presence, I couldn’t even conceive of what God was, let alone what it felt like to be in love with “him”. 

 

One day, I asked please show me what it feels like. A powerful and beautiful emotion came over me, a joyousness expanding into ecstasy, an open-hearted connectedness with everything, feeling intensely alive and in awe of the beauty around me. I was surprised to find that it was an old familiar feeling; how I feel out in nature, my peak nature experience. I realized that I’ve known this feeling all my life as I’ve always had a passionate love for nature. If this is what it feels like to be in love with God, then I’ve always been in love with God. I was never really the atheist I used to think I was. 

 

It was as if a heavy dark curtain had parted. Suddenly the path before me was open in a new way, full of light, full of love, full of grace and inherent beauty. My reality was changed. God, Creator, the Universe, however you might want to characterize the Divine, had become tangible for me in a way I never could have imagined; utterly real and recognizable, and though I never grasped it, something I’ve always known!

By Karen R.