I recently have come to learn of the immense love of Jesus. I was raised in a Christian home but never had really realized how his love could change my life.

In December of 1997 I was married and after six months my wife left me. She told me that she just wasn’t happy. Devastated I went into counseling on the college campus I was attending. They offered free group and individual counseling to anyone passing through psychological distress in their lives – a service I am today immensely grateful for. I attended group counseling for about 3 years. After attending once a week for about 2 years I felt pretty well recovered, and stopped attending. Then after about six months I realized how much I’d learned and wanted further reinforcement of it, so returned to attending for about 6 more months til I graduated.

The primary thing I learned was that if we let people, possessions, money, or situations around us determine our happiness then we are never going to be happy. So, we cannot let these things determine our happiness! For the few days after my divorce, all I could do when I was alone was ball. The following year was dreadfully up and down for me emotionally. Whenever I was alone I seemed to just sporadically breakdown and ball. It was a low time for me. Other people I met in the group counseling I attended were going through everything from suicidal depression to simply difficulties getting along with a roommate, spouse, or parent. Some of the people severely depressed sometimes had difficulty even finding the motivation to get out of bed in the morning. They felt as if life was hopeless. The main counselor would often ask, “So what if you never did get up in the morning. Is that so bad? If you laid in bed and didn’t do your homework or go to class does that make you a bad person?” I learned that nothing around me, no circumstance or money or anything can really make me happy.

Six months or so before graduation, when I began to attend counseling again, I began to feel somewhat hopeless about myself and my relationship with God. I felt fine about my relations with others, but as much as I tried, there were just things I seemed to never be perfect about. I began to pray more to God concerning Jesus and to understand what he really did for me. One night, while working at the custodial job I had at the time, I felt so hopeless in my efforts to be perfect that I said to God, “I guess I can’t be good enough for you and I‘m just going to go to hell. I guess I can live with that.” A few moments later I thought, how can a God exist who would create me hopelessly imperfect. At that moment I slowly began to understand the love of Jesus.

I began to think perhaps works didn’t matter to God, even if people didn’t even have the strength or motivation to get out of bed in the morning, or if someone couldn’t drive out their homosexual desires (like a close friend of mine), that perhaps what we do really doesn’t matter to God at all. Perhaps all that matters is that we believe in him and in his love and saving grace. Then when we realize and really believe in Jesus’ totally unconditional love and saving grace, it is so powerful to us that it changes our lives, and soon all we can ever seem to do is love others as we’ve realized that Jesus loves us – as imperfect as we are.

These thoughts seemed to run contrary to all I’d been taught in the Christian church I grew up in. When I recently moved on to the graduate school I’m at I came in contact with some Christians who had been “born again.” They reaffirmed to me all that I’d felt concerning the love and grace of Jesus. Even now I continue to pray daily to better understand what Jesus has done for me. I still feel as though my understanding is very limited, but I’d never realized how wonderful the love of Jesus is really is.

If you don’t already know Jesus, I hope that you would pray to know him and learn of his grace and love. Jesus will change your life. No one can save themselves, only Jesus can. Learn of his love and believe in him. Jesus loves you unconditionally. When you begin to realize this, you won’t be able to help loving yourself, because you know you are more than accepted by Jesus. And then after understanding God’s love and then accepting and loving yourself, you won’t be able to help but love and unconditionally accept the people around you. Jesus hung out with and befriended everyone who nobody else would hang out with. He loves and will save you too.

If you are a college student (like myself) and want to learn more about Jesus, call up or log on to the website of Campus Crusade for Christ. If not, find a local church that will be able to teach you about Jesus and his love. :)