Thank your heavenly Father for expressing His unconditional love to you. May it free you and enable you to do the same with your spouse.

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

David said one day that he'd be glad when I (Teresa) said, "I love you" first. David needed me to initiate statements of love. It wasn't that I didn't love him or that I was afraid to share my feelings with him. I just wasn't used to expressing my positive feelings. When I was grow­ing up, I wasn't taught to share my feelings aloud at all. After I left home for good, I remembered that my mother signed her letters with "I love you," but I never heard her say those words.

I can look back and see the change that took place in my life when I first received Christ's love. When I saw how Christ loved me, then I could love myself. The Lord showed me how He loved me before the world began, how He loved me when I was in my mother's womb, how He loved me even when I disobeyed my parents. God loved me when I felt deep rejection from the girls at school. He loved me when, against our parents' better judgment, David and I got married. He loved me first. Plain and simple—He loved me.

When I felt God's tender affection toward me, I was finally able to give to David. Before that I couldn't give that love to David because I hadn't received it myself.

David also helped me by continuing to give to me and express his love for me. He's never loved me conditionally, but rather he's loved me with the unconditional love of Christ. Having received love from God and David, I'm finding it easier to express my love.

Thank You, Father, for expressing Your unconditional love to me. May it free me and enable me to do the same with my spouse.