GOD LOVES ME BUT DOES HE LIKE ME?

Have you ever been around a family where there is a clear favorite? We always joke in my family that there is a "golden child", but the truth is, my parents would've done the most they could for each of us. My kids are always trying to be my favorite and I totally play along with them. I take the 'what have you done for me lately' approach😂 It keeps them on their toes and gives everyone a chance to be the favorite by spoiling mom. I feel like it's a win/win! Have you ever wondered about who would be God's favorite? Does He have favorites? Because let's be honest, there are some people that God seems to smile down on more than others. I was having breakfast with a friend recently and they were really struggling. They are walking through a super tough time in life. I have totally been there; that point in life where you think, "Life just can't get any better" and then it proves you right by falling down around your feet. This person sat across from me, both of us with tears in our eyes as she asked the question, I know God loves me, but maybe I'm not His favorite; can I be His second best? Or maybe God just doesn't like me. I felt her words as if I said them myself. I don't think I have ever verbalized that thought before, but I have wondered it. Clearly, God loves me. I know because the Bible is His love letter to me. He sent His own Son to die in my place! But when I look around, there are other Christians who live a life that doesn't have the struggles I am going through. True that you never know what a person is walking through, but something like death is easy to see and define. And it just hasn't been one death in my family. My dad's first wife died, my sister in law died, my baby nephew died and my husband died. That seems like a lot of deaths for one family. But it's not just the deaths. For me, it's the single parenting, the starting over mid-life and the insecurities that have plagued me. I am so in over my head I wonder at times if I will ever reach the surface again or will I just be drowning forever? Yes, God loves me, but does He like me? Since He is my Heavenly Father, and He talks about how as earthly parents, we desire to give good things to our kids and how much more does our Father know how to give us good things (Matthew 7:11), could it be that maybe I am the red-headed step child and I didn't know it before now? (No offense to red-headed step children!) The thought that maybe God didn't like me stayed with me for days. I mulled it around in my mind for several days after meeting with her. The comparison of how God treats me with how He treats others around me made me start to feel insecure about how He really felt towards me. If I were a loving parent, I would never want my children to suffer. So why would God continue to put hard things in my life? I understand that I feel like He allowed Greg's disease and death into my life as a gift of sorts to me, that He purposed and chose for me to walk this path. But why the extra hardships? Why can't all my children behave in the way I would like them to? Why do they have to struggle in their Christian walk? And why am I almost five years into widowhood and still trying to figure out who I am without Greg and what is my life purpose now? I was so certain that God had laid out my life and had shown me what I was to do. Now He completely changes everything? It's tough to see some of your close friends who are living the life that you want; married, children thriving, jobs going well and they are moving ahead in life. Of course, I know they struggle, but com'on. They don't look like they're struggling like ME!! Finally, I brought myself up short and made myself sit down and analyze my feelings. Uh oh. I think I was back to having a pity party for myself (which you can read about in several other blogs. Looks like I still need work). I started to think about the character of God. What do I know about Him? Well, I know that He is holy (1 Peter 1:16) and that He is without sin (1 Peter 2:22). He literally can NOT sin. Therefore, He can't have favorites. He just can't do it. He loves us all equally with an unending love. There are some awesome verses in 1 John 4. Verse 16 says, "So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. GOD IS LOVE, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him" (emphasis is mine). Letting the evil one convince me that the struggles I have gone through and am currently going through could possibly mean that God didn't like me meant that I was not abiding in God's love. I was contemplating believing a lie about God. Looking at what God has allowed into my life was somehow punishment or less favoritism from God. It's not that God doesn't like me; it's that we live in a fallen world. My friend wasn't suffering because God didn't love them. It's because this life is flawed and because of it, we have things that enter our lives that are hurtful and sometimes harmful. Does it mean that God has forgotten us or somehow doesn't love us as much as someone else? No! In fact, if you look around and study the Word of God, you will find His love all around you. He is faithful and can be trusted! So what did I do to turn things around in my thought life? Well, I consciously kicked the evil one out of my thoughts. He is not allowed to enter here! And then I reminded him and myself that I love God because He FIRST loved me (1 John 4:19). In fact, He loved me so much that when I accepted Him into my life, He put the Holy Spirit in me and when I ask Him, the Holy Spirit will whisper to me of God's great love for me and remind me that not only does God love me, He likes me too:) And He likes you too, my beautifully broken friend!