‘God demonstrated his love towards us‘ was the theme we explored at The Globe Church Launch last Sunday. I just heard the old song ‘Hyperballad’ by Bjork, and it reminded me afresh of how insecure we can be about whether we are loved. Bjork likens her relationship to living on top of a mountain. “every morning i walk towards the edge and throw little things off like: car-parts, bottles and cutlery…i go through this before you wake up so i can feel happier to be safe up here with you.” She clearly doesn’t feel safe, and constantly has to purge her life to make it happier.

The second verse is haunting:

It’s real early morning, no-one is awake, I’m back at my cliff, still throwing things off, I listen to the sounds they make, on their way down, I follow with my eyes ’til they crash, imagine what my body would sound like, slamming against those rocks

Life can be like a mountain top. Precarious. It can bring happiness, there can be feelings of safety, but it can bring such overwhelming insecurity, guilt, and depression.

God has demonstrated – he wants us to know – that his love is not dependent on us purging ourselves. He doesn’t love us because we are lovely. It’s not because we are successful, clever, beautiful or skinny. He knows the depths of those dark feelings of insecurity and pain. He doesn’t want us to imagine or to be uncertain. He loves us.

I suffered with depression, and know something of the pain of overwhelming dark thoughts. I’ve learned when I don’t love myself, to look at the cross. There I know for sure. I am loved, I am safe because Jesus took my guilt, my insecurity and my unloveliness. I may not always feel loved, my feelings are not always true. But I can know that I am loved because God demonstrated it at the cross.