I knelt on the edge of my bed and peered out the window, staring at the stars. Although stars usually filled me with wonder, on this night they filled me with coldness. Their very brightness highlighted my insignificance. I listened to the sounds outside--the hum of crickets and the swishing of trees. The wind's coolness caused my tears to feel all the warmer.

I pressed my forehead against the window's screen. "Oh, Lord," I whispered. "What's happened to me? Where is the love I felt for you?"

Doubts of my salvation jabbed my heart like needles. The voices in my mind that once whispered I was a terrible Christian now screamed the words at me. Scenes, like nightmares, played behind my eyelids: people I had neglected praying for, family members living in ignorance of Jesus' salvation because of my cowardice, the persecuted Christians that I avoided thinking about because they shamed me and my comfortable life.

But the worst nightmare was the loss of my conviction and passion. The Christian I had been had fled, and the only thing she had left was this indescribable fear and shame. My lack of action condemned me; I no longer knew where I stood with God.

I turned from my window and stared at the ceiling."Do you even like me, Lord?" I asked. "Please let me know in a way that I will understand. I want so much to go back to the way we were, but I don't know how." I lay down and eventually fell asleep.

I sat toward the back of church the next morning. I had only attended this particular church three times, and I felt out of place. At the end of the service, the pastor asked anyone who wanted to receive prayer to come forward. I hesitated as people brushed past.

"I'll do this as an act of obedience," I whispered to the Lord. Sucking in my breath, I approached the throng at the front of the church. Some stood with hands raised and eyes closed. One man knelt on the stairs. I felt dry as I nestled into a corner, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I stared at the blue fabric of my dress.

As the pastor prayed, I tried to close my eyes and put my heart back in God's control. After the pastor dismissed us, I turned to leave, feeling unchanged but resigned. A man walked toward me and placed his hand on my shoulder. "God loves you," he said.

I gave him a nervous smile, unsure why he had singled me out. I noticed the brown bristles of his mustache before I looked over his shoulder. "God loves you. I feel like He wanted me to tell you that," he said. "Do you know God loves you?" I looked down, feeling off guard at his blunt question. "Sometimes," I whispered.

"God loves you very much and wants you to know it," he said. I buried my face in my hands and started to cry with a mixture of joy at what God was doing for me and regret that I had doubted Him.

"Do you know why He loves you?" the man asked. I thought of all my failings and doubts. I thought of my selfishness and my greed and my fear of dying to myself . . . my fear of what God might ask me to do. I shook my head. No, I had nothing God could possibly love.

"He loves you because you are His," he said. They were words I had heard 100 times in 100 different sermons, but I savored them.

I have sometimes forgotten those words since then, but God gently reminds me."But what about my failure as a messenger of the gospel?" I sometimes ask Him. "I love you," He says.

"But what about my fear and doubt and lack of faith?" I ask. "I love you," He says.

"What about my hardened heart?" I ask. "My inability to care for people as I should?" "I love you," He says. "I will see you completed in time."

"We love Him because He first loved us" 1 John 4:19.