It’s amazing, really.  We take this word, “love”, and we define it in so many ways.

There are love languages and love stories and love ballads.  It has got to be one of the most talked about words in the English vocabulary.

And we still don’t fully grasp it’s meaning.

I heard this song on one of my driving trips to visit my mom in a nursing home.  And it hit me.  Hard.

God loves me, ANYWAY.

Even though I don’t deserve it.  Even though I have failed and faltered and feared.  He loves me anyway.

I am a simple girl.  I treasure the most basic things in life, but far too often my focus is on me.  What I want.  What I think I need.

And yet…

He loves me, anyway.

Don’t you see?  Love is more than an emotion that wells up within you when you see your beloved or hold that newborn baby.

Love is when words are spoken that break your heart, or a child that you poured your life into walks away,

and you love them anyway.

The pain that Jesus bore on the cross was more than just the stakes in His hands or the crown of thorns on His head.  The agony He experienced was because of our sin.   The sin of every man–our sin–seared into Him like a branding iron.  His response?

“Father, forgive them.”

While His heart was breaking His thoughts were of you.  Of me.  Of those He knew would sin against him.  And He loved us anyway.

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.”  John 13:34