I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.  I’ve been trying to pinpoint why exactly this year was so difficult for me.  {if you’d like to know more about my journey this year you can read i’m finally back}  When I think about all of my challenges, struggles, inner thoughts and feelings, I can say that it can be concluded to one giant void in my life.  

This year {just like every year before…} I believed in God’s goodness, faithfulness and immense love for his children.  I would call out to God every day for his mercy and his direction, for his joy and contentment to wash over me.  But it seemed like no matter how hard I prayed, no matter how much scripture I read, I still couldn’t feel the presence of God.  {Am I saying he wasn’t there?  Absolutely not!}  What I am saying is that I felt this complete void of communication and interaction with God.  It was like I was somehow cut off from his presence, and it didn’t matter how hard I cried or reached out to God, the lines of communication were cut.  

I don’t have all the answers for why we have these seasons in our lives, but I think I may have a pretty good idea for my own experience.  {maybe this is where you are at too…?}  

Subconsciously my whole life I’ve thought of God as GOD.  {that is extremely vague…let me explain…}  I thought of my savior as this being that loves me, but really doesn’t have any personal connection to little ol’ me.  I certainly knew a lot about God, and talked about my relationship with him, but as for this extremely personal relationship with God where I felt like I was the apple of his eye…that was non existent. {so maybe its like the phrase about faith being a mile wide and an inch deep?}  Somehow I have gotten through 23 years of church attendance, youth group conferences and Bible study without actually feeling a deep, meaningful, personal, complete emotional and all encompassing relationship with my Savior! {how. terribly. sad.}  It’s not like I didn’t have faith or that I don’t think that God loves me, it simply came down to whether or not I could feel God’s incredible love for me. 

As I told you all before, I went to a women’s retreat a few weekends ago where I experienced this epic epiphany.  The speaker {named Laura} was specifically referring to an experience that she had with God when she said to the audience,  “Laura, you let me save you, but you have never let me love you.” However, I took it personally.  Why? Because she said my name.  If she had simply said, “we let God save us but not love us” I could have gotten something out of it for sure.  {it would have probably been just another bullet point in my journal…}  I didn’t need to hear another Christian fact that God loves us.  I needed to hear the cry of God’s heart, “Laura…I love you.”  It was my name that made the biggest difference between another fact in my book or an inspirational thought to be journaled and a real life changing moment.  It was my name being called, the desire of God to reach out and embrace me personally.  Once I heard my name, it was as if the lines of communication were fixed, the heavens had opened and I could hear perfectly clear what God was saying.   

I thought I needed to hear a profoundly inspirational message or hear God speak in booming surround sound his purpose for my life and that would solve my “broken lines of communication”.  But all I really needed to hear was him calling my name.  I needed to hear him simply reaffirm his powerful love for me, “Laura…I love you.” 

Online payment http://www.unica-web.com/archive/2013/german/UNICA2013-AGM-minutes3.html order levitra online can be made with credit card. Want to enhance your sexual life? Want to have better intercourse. https://unica-web.com/archive/2018/better-clubs-ideas-in-german.html levitra 40 mg All these medicinal extracts https://www.unica-web.com/watch/2018/tunnel.html viagra 50 mg have the power to improve hair growth and get rid of dandruff. buy viagra no prescription https://unica-web.com/archive/2011/palmares2011.pdf This pill should be swig by men who have gone under prostate gland operation may notice nerve smash up which is in charge to cause erectile dysfunction. I have been taught an incredible truth for my life, in fact the most important truth for my life. God loves me, Laura Katherine Wachowiak, faults and all, mistakes and all, success and all.  He wants an incredibly personal relationship with me, and literally called me by name to get that. And guess what, he wants the same relationship with you. 

I want to encourage you today, because sometimes we feel like just another person on this earth.  We feel alone, rejected and left in the dust, cut off from God and his voice.  Sometimes we just need to hear our name being called, we need to hear that we personally are loved.  

Everyday I replay God’s words, “Laura, I love you.”  I would encourage you to do the same.  It’s one thing to know about God’s love, and its another thing to live in it. 

Know today that God calls us all by name, personally, to tell us the powerfully simple phrase, “I love you”. 

“And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness— secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name.” [isaiah 45:3]