Love Letters to God
“Letters mingle souls.” ~ John Donne
At our annual Christmas luncheon, Mother pulled a small envelope from her purse and wordlessly, tenderly presented it to me. I recognized the uneven penmanship as my father’s. My mind raced. “Oh, Mother! Is this the letter—the one I’ve begged him to write for so long?” Her glimmering tears answered silently. She suggested I read it when I was alone.
Later that night, as I sat in the hearthroom amid the glow of flickering flames and the hazy halo of Christmas lights, I tore open the envelope with trembling fingers and read the precious missive. Onto several little note pages, my father’s stoic soul had melted, giving way to a litany of love. For as long as I could remember, Daddy had never voiced his tenderness toward me. What he could not say in person now flowed freely from his pen. I read and wept—and wept again. Gently placing the papers back in the envelope, I knew I was placing a lifetime of Daddy’s love in my heart.
Video: Is Jesus merely a “guest” in your life?: Be filled with the Holy Spirit
How can you grow with God? Talk to us
How well I understood my father’s awkwardness. I had often tried unsuccessfully to verbalize my love to my heavenly Father. Self-conscious and stilted, I found it impossible to speak my love in prayer. It was difficult to concentrate and to articulate my deepest feelings for God. My endearments were spoken scattershot—blurted erratically, thrown haphazardly to the wind. I began to realize that sentiments so treasured, so tender, must be carefully weighed and thoughtfully considered, mined like gems from the heart’s depths.
Then one day I took the time to write a letter to God. It was amazing! My emotions poured forth, spilling over from my heart’s reservoir of love. Somehow the very act of writing—this praying on paper—had released a geyser of feelings formerly unexpressed.
Yet this experience really should have come as no surprise. After all, God, our supreme Lover, our great Romancer, knew that a wonderful way to woo His beloved and express His emotions was through a love letter, the Bible. He knew that “letters mingle souls,” and He gave us His heart-print in ink so that we would have the joy of reading, pondering, and tracing its testimony over and over again. Because the spoken word is ephemeral, God bestowed us with a lasting testament of His passion.
God took great pleasure in giving us His written love letter. And we can assume He would also take great delight in receiving our written response. Because God is a writer, it is only natural that we, created in His image, are writers also.
As one author declared, “Love always wants to proclaim itself, to write itself everywhere: in the sand, in the fire, with flowers, in the wind.” David, the psalmist and king, knew this. He declared, “My heart is overflowing with a beautiful thought! I will write a lovely poem to the King, for I am as full of words as the speediest writer pouring out his story.” When David’s psalms were put on paper, the abundance of his heart naturally spilled over into a collection of love letters, the Psalms—the book of Scripture many of us treasure most.
Oh, how we cherish love letters! We wait breathlessly to receive them. We read and reread them. We sprinkle them with perfume, tie them with a satin ribbon, and store them in a gorgeous box. We savor them because they make us feel extraordinary—because someone thought enough of us to write to us, because someone took the time and effort to reveal his inmost, passionate thoughts, because someone trusted us with the greatest gift of all, his heart.
It is the gift of your whole heart that God most desires—a heart without pretense or posturing; a heart in all its honesty, beauty, passion, and brokenness; a heart pulsing with love, joy, sadness, delight, doubt, pain, anguish, even anger. True love expresses all emotions, and true love—God’s true love for you—accepts them.
The most beautiful way I have found in which to wrap the gift of my heart is within a letter. Love letters are “our heart on our sleeve, our battle standard, our essence, our indelible signature, our emotional fingerprint, our private well of memory…our true secret self.”
It is our hidden self we most long to reveal. My love letters reveal my truest essence—my soul made visible in all its intimacy and intricacy. I cannot help but love God because He loves me; I cannot help but write to God because He has written to me. I take the time to write because my Lover is worthy of my efforts. I write because, though physically unseen, God is real, and writing draws me closer to Him. I write because I desire to offer Him more than a hurried “I love You” on the run. I write because I long to embroider my passion with a flourish of my pen, an embellishment of my heart. I write because my spoken sentiments are evanescent, and I desire a permanent way to preserve my thoughts. I write because God values my prayers so much that He says He sprinkles them with incense and saves them in the “golden bowls of heaven.”
My ups, my downs, my victories, my defeats, my adoration, my apathy, my faith, my doubts, my questions—and God’s responses—are recorded in my journals. These entries are love letters from my heart to God’s—messages from His heart to mine—letters sent special delivery to and from heaven that have changed my life on earth. I sign my letters in ink that will one day fade. But God signs His in indelible ink—the blood of His Son shed for me, blood that covers my imperfection and allows me to pray openly to Him.
You show that you are a
letter from Christ…written
not with ink but with
the Spirit of the living God,
not on tablets of stone but
on tablets of human hearts.2 Corinthians 3:3
Excerpted from Love Letters to God © 2004 by Lynn Morrissey. Used by permission of Multnomah Publishers, Inc. Excerpt may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.
Dear GOD
im so alone here
in this world
plz can u take me on ur home?
thank you brono and jamie for your comments good articles from you both. God’s ultimate love letter is the bible HIS WORD to us.
Dear God,
I’m here today to ask you to help me deal with this stress, my husband and I wanna start a family really bad and been trying for about 8 months now and I’m asking you to help me out and create a heathly baby for me.
Thank you God
Love you.
God never promised that you would be rich. In fact, He instructed at least one rich person to give away everything he had so that he could follow Jesus. But the things that God does give us are far more beneficial even thought they don’t always seem so at first. There is a poem that talks about that:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.
-Anonymous-
I know that life seems overwhelming right now but I guarantee that if you focus your attention on knowing God He will give you the strength to face whatever comes at you and fill your life with meaning.
Let me encourage you to talk to one of our online mentors. They can help you discover the things that God has indeed promised you. You can find a Mentor Request Form at http://powertochange.com/experience/talk-to-a-mentor
Thank you for blessing the kardashians, Mariah Carey, NBA, NFL, Gangsta Rappers and Thank you for doing absolutely nothing for me! Struggling working poor. I’ve wasted too many years with your ask for help, always there, pie in the sky lies! What a waste of belief, hope and energy.
I love the way you said that leonard…to wrap the gift of your heart within a letter! Awesome! As we write that letter to God we start with the problem but we end with praising God for who He is. Just like David it takes our eyes off the problem and back onto the God that we love.
This is so true:
The most beautiful way I have found in which to wrap the gift of my heart is within a letter. Love letters are “our heart on our sleeve, our battle standard, our essence, our indelible signature, our emotional fingerprint, our private well of memory…our true secret self.”
Writing a letter to god always makes me focus more on the problem and always makes me feel more grateful for the life I have. Thank you. Leonard
What an awesome reminder of all that God has done for us!! Amazing! Thank you so much for taking the time to share it with us!
Thank you for the uplifting, inspiring, and very deep and profound message you just wrote. You have a very BEAUTIFUL SOUL. I wish I could tell you HOW beautiful you ARE. Thank you so much. :)
Can I ask a letter that responses to the “Fathers Love Letter”….
this is the content of the letter:
My Child,
You may not know me,
but I know everything about you.
Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up.
Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways.
Psalm 139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered.
Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image.
Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being.
Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring.
Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived.
Jeremiah 1:4-5
I chose you when I planned creation.
Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake,
for all your days are written in my book.
Psalm 139:15-16
I determined the exact time of your birth
and where you would live.
Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother’s womb.
Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born.
Psalm 71:6
I have been misrepresented
by those who don’t know me.
John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry,
but am the complete expression of love.
1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you.
1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child
and I am your Father.
1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could.
Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father.
Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand.
James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs.
Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love.
Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless
as the sand on the seashore.
Psalms 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you.
Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession.
Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you
with all my heart and all my soul.
Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things.
Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart,
you will find me.
Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you
the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
For it is I who gave you those desires.
Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you
than you could possibly imagine.
Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the Father who comforts you
in all your troubles.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted,
I am close to you.
Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb,
I have carried you close to my heart.
Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away
every tear from your eyes.
Revelation 21:3-4
And I’ll take away all the pain
you have suffered on this earth.
Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you
even as I love my son, Jesus.
John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed.
John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being.
Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you,
not against you.
Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression
of my love for you.
1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved
that I might gain your love.
Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus,
you receive me.
1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you
from my love again.
Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party
heaven has ever seen.
Luke 15:7
I have always been Father,
and will always be Father.
Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is…
Will you be my child?
John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you.
Luke 15:11-32
Love, Your Dad
Almighty God
[...] Love Letters to God [...]