When did You start to love me, Father?  When I made my first confession of faith?  Or the thirty-second one?  Was it when I got seriously committed to my Bible-reading plan or more regular in my times of extended prayer?

Because it seems earlier.  I have known Your love as I have received each grandchild into my arms for the first time.  I have understood Your devotion in raising my children from the first to the last, all the way until it was finished.  When they were birthed from my body into the world, I grasped the glorious moment of man’s creation as “heaven and earth” passed through me.  At the altar of marriage I sensed the abiding gift of Your love over my life – mine to receive.

So when did You begin to love me?

Zechariah 12.1  Was it when You stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth, could You already comprehend the spirit You would form in me?

Ecclesiastes 11.5  Was it when you were forming my body in my mother’s womb – just as surely as You created the paths for the winds?

Psalm 139.13-16  Or was it when You created my inmost being, as You were knitting me together in my mother’s womb?

Could it have been before that, even?  Did You already “get” me, decide to love me when I was being made in the ‘secret place,’  woven together in the depths of the earth, where already, You understood the look, the frame of me?

Before even one of my days had come to be, You had already written the book, told the story of my life – every single day of it.  Did You like what You had written?  Could You see me as a character You loved and wanted to follow?  You are my Author.  Are You finishing my story in a way that brings You joy?

Job 10.8-12  You gave me life and watched over my spirit, the soul of me,  even as Your hands touched me, shaped me like clay and molded and made me.  When You were knitting me together and clothing me with skin and flesh – is that when You began to love me?

Isaiah 49.1-2  Before I was even born You called me and at my birth You named me.  You gave me unmistakeable characteristics.  Why?

Jeremiah 1.4-5  Before I was even born, You set me apart and made an appointment for my life.  Before I was born You knew me.  You knew me.  How?  How did You know?

When did You start to love me?

Galatians 1.15-16   Was it when you set me apart from birth, calling me by Your grace?  Is this when You started loving me?

I don’t know when.  I cannot comprehend how.  But I am so thankful for Your love.  That You – so loved – even me.

“How precious are Your thoughts about me, O God.  They cannot be numbered.  I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!  And when I wake up, You are still with me.”  Psalm 139. 17-18  NLT