Encountering God’s Love in Suffering & SicknessSample

"God's love is overflowing"

My dear friend put it well when she said, "We all carry around within ourselves a cage of rats." The rats are our unkindness, our sin struggles, tensions our personalities bring, and our hardness of heart. We know these rats well. We love some of them, and we hate some of them, but ultimately we work very hard at hiding them from those who know us. We are quietly testing the boundaries of the depth of love in our relationships. For me, it felt like marriage became this moment when I could release the rats--those early years were a testing of Jason's unconditional love. Not only did he get my morning-grouch rat, he got my slob-in-living rat, my panic-hateful-clean-up-this-mess-someone-is-coming-over rat, my please-always-say-exactly-what-I-want-you-to-say control rat. Oh, my blessed, gentle husband looked all my ugly rats in the face and said, "Kara, I love you--rats and all. You are mine for always." And slowly, I trusted him. I believed his love, and we worked on the rats. God loves us the same way, but He loves us in such a way that says, "I have something better. I can change your heart. I'm not afraid of your rats, but I have a greater joy than these silly, hateful, creatures that steal the best of life from you."

* How have you experienced overflowing love, from both God and others, despite your personal set of rats?