Lifetime Daily DevotionsSample

Someone to Love Me . . . may you be able to feel and understand . . . how long, how wide, how deep and how high His love really is and to experience this love for yourself . . .                                                                             Ephesians 3:18-19 (TLB Paraphrase)             She was around sixty years old, a vibrant person, radiating the love and joy of Jesus. But that glow was not always there. Here is her story: I was nineteen when she said it. She wasn't vengeful. It was really a rather casual statement for her to make. Her statements were always meant to sound casual. They never were. I was graduating in just five days, valedictorian of my class, on the honor roll with a scholarship to a prestigious university. That day, my mother and I had been shopping, getting ready for the high school prom. I didn't have a date, but I was going with some of my friends and we were all excited about this grand occasion. Mother always took charge of our shopping sprees, and she finally picked out an absolutely beautiful prom dress and all of the accessories to go with it.             When we got home I took the dress, the sheer hose, the satin shoes, the necklace--everything--and went to my room to see how I was going to look in all of my finery. I twisted my hair up, put on some makeup and called Mother to come and view the finished product. I thought I was beautiful! She came. I just knew she was going to tell me how lovely I was. But that didn't happen. She looked at me for several seconds, almost scowling, then said, "You will never be a pretty woman. You had better learn to be attractive." I spent the next forty years of my life trying to "be attractive" and decided one night to quit trying. I could not please her no matter how many degrees I earned, no matter how important my position might be, nothing. I had carefully planned the "exit" of this pathetic victim. I was forty stories up and ready to jump, too weary to try any longer. In the last second, thoughts of the Jesus others had told me about came to me. I stopped and sobbing asked Him to help me. He did! Jesus came to me! He dragged me to safety--I  never could have done it by myself--and He took me in His arms whispering, "It's all right." I had been searching for sixty-two years for someone to love me, really truly love me, then God sent Jesus...He was the Someone to love me. [1]   How many hurting people do we casually rub shoulders with every day, sit next to at the movies, chat with at work, sit with on the same pew at church? Some of them are frantic people searching for love. We come into this world crying for love, and many people die still crying and still searching for someone to love them. And all the while He is there with this promise: God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to die for you! God so loved the world--that's you! You are in this world! He sent His Son, His only Son, to die for YOU! For YOU! Oh, if only we could convince these loveless victims that they are loved beyond their wildest dreams! Convince them that there is Someone who will never hurt them with caustic or hateful remarks, who believes in them, who will always see the very best in them, who gives and gives and gives of His overwhelming love for them! How we urge them to ask Jesus to come into their battered world and be the Encourager, the Comforter, the Friend, the Constant Companion, the Lover they have yearned for all their life!                From those of us who know this Someone, we plead with you, ask Him to come into your life.     [1] John Peterson