Looking for Love?

Are you looking for love? Do you think you must be looking for it in the wrong place? Well, I have some good news for you. Love is right where you are.

The Bible reveals that God is Love.

Now, you might say, "That's OK, but I'm looking for the kind of love that walks on two legs." I used to think love could only come to me in the blond- or brown-haired variety. But I found I couldn't escape the ultimate search to discover where love really comes from.

People are not the source of the love we seek; God is. But this fact doesn't keep you from having satisfying human relationships; when you're interested in finding them, it helps you. Love - God - is expressed in us, and in good relationships.

When I wished I had a boyfriend who really liked me, my mother assured me that God loved me immensely. That He had already made me complete. That I was made in His spiritual image. I didn't really get what this meant. At first, I thought it meant that I would no longer need the friendship of a boyfriend. And I really wanted a boyfriend. So I resisted the thought of being already made complete by God.

But later, I started to think about how God always gives only good things. And I began to see how feeling the love of God, and expressing it, is what results in our having good friends - including boyfriends and girlfriends.

We all matter a lot to God. For this reason we all actually have what we really need right now. Seeing it this way, I began to feel that God loved me so very much and that He had made me perfect in every way. I started feeling loved meaningfully, already, even before I had a boyfriend to like me! I felt the love that comes directly from God.

And having boyfriends was never a problem after that.

Understanding that God has made us complete brings wonderful feelings of self-worth that don't waver. It makes it easy to smile at people and to act relaxed and friendly with them. I found I wasn't tense or nervous when some guy would talk to me. I didn't feel unworthy to go up to people and speak to them, either. My dad said he noticed how I had changed, and how much more often the telephone in our house rang for me.

I learned to feel God's love first. I learned to make God my first and best friend. I learned that feeling loved by God helps us to express more love to others. It's never wrong to love other people or to enjoy how someone is expressing love to us. But to think that love originates in people, either in us or someone else, isn't trustworthy. People express qualities of love. These are spiritual. God, divine Love, is their source.

Do you want to be a good friend and have good friends? Is the confidence that you can have fun relationships - and not feel afraid that you may say or do the wrong thing - attractive to you? Do you want to stop being afraid that you don't deserve to have others like you? When you get it straight that love is found first in God, you can't help but find real happiness and friendship. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, once told a large group of her friends, "Where God is we can meet, and where God is we can never part" ("The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," Pg. 131).

You can think of yourself as living in Love, and all your friendships as living in it, too. Christ Jesus told his followers, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you" (John 15:12). That shows how good relationships come about, and how natural it is for us to have them!

All through the Bible, you'll find accounts of how God loves us and of how people have learned to love each other. You can read in the book of Ruth how a young woman found love and marriage through expressing God's love; in First Samuel how the loyalty of two friends, David and Jonathan, got them through a lot of problems; and in Genesis how Isaac and Rebekah met and fell in love. There are many other stories, too. Each shows in its own way that God cares for us. That He has made us complete through His love. And that He blesses us with all that we need in order to have happy relationships.

You can read other articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine.