One of the things that has recently come out in a recent sermon is the fact that God loves us. As children we sing the song “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” We can so easily dismiss it as just being something else that we do in church, but the fact of the matter is that God really loves us. I have witnessed in my experience with students that oftentimes when students act out, it is because they do not know that they are loved.
When a person loves, they are willing to do virtually whatever it takes, regardless of the cost, to express that love towards another. Have you ever doubted that God loves you?
Mary McLeod Bethune grew up during a time when Black people faced discrimination, racism, injustice, violence, and blatant disrespect. That trauma could be hurtful to anyone's self-esteem. When she was a child, she accompanied her mother to pick up laundry from the House of a white family. She picked up a book and began to look at it. One of the white children took the book from her and told her she needed to put the book down because “Negroes don’t read.” That was a turning point in her life. She told her parents, she told her siblings, and she told the mule that she was going to learn to read. She prayed and asked God to send someone to teach her to read and write. God answered that prayer. She was able to attend school, and on the first day of class her first lesson was from John 3:16 , which reads, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
That issue as to whether God loved her was forever settled in her heart. She believed that God made us all, and that she was equal to anyone. When we look at the life of Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune and see her accomplishments during the time she made them, we realize she could not have done them outside of God. How was she able to persevere through such adversity of her day and fulfill God’s calling for her life? She was able to do it because, in the words of her favorite hymn, she was “leaning on the everlasting arms.”
When we finally realize that God loves us we forever settle the issue in our heart, which allows us to “lean on the everlasting arms” and live life knowing that God is working on our behalf, for His glory.