Hearing the phrase "I love you" from someone you have never met before or barely know is quite the odd experience. Perhaps the most relatable scenario to think of is when someone accidentally says "I love you" to you on the phone before you hang up. Talk about awkward! However, I can recall a time about a year ago when my sister and I were shopping at Target and something similar yet unique happened to me. I was in the aisle with all the pencils and pens, and I came across a pack of colored pencils that were called "I love hue." Now, I am an avid lover of word puns, and this one absolutely cracked me up. So I called out to my sister who was a couple aisles down, "Hey, I love hue!" and held up the pencils to show her. With perfect timing, a guy walking past me and casually responded, "I love you, too" with a wink, and just kept strolling along. My jaw dropped and I looked at my sister in shock. I was not expecting that at all and I had no words to say! It was definitely strange.

Maybe you've experienced something like this, or maybe you haven't. Either way, you can imagine how weird it is to be told a phrase so endearing by someone you do not know. But I can guarantee that someone loves you, no matter what and whether you know Him or not, and that's God. In the bible, 1 John 4:9-10 says "God showed us how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love-- not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." God already demonstrated love and grace by sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, before you and I even existed. Now that's immense love!

God's love is not strange or weird. It is not something you earn or have to strive for. God's love is unfathomable and never-ending. And the most amazing thing is He loves every single one of us! Those who know Him, AND those who don't. It may seem unrealistic to consider that someone loves you, whom you don't know. Maybe God is a stranger to you. Maybe you've never heard that God loves you. But you need to hear these words, and I can guarantee that they are true. Later in 1 John, verse 19 states "We love because he first loved us." FIRST! How great is that?

These three words might be something you say every day, or hear every day, to and from those around you. It might become just a phrase that you say out of habit, or sometimes with a bit more meaning. But God's love is demonstrated all throughout the Bible, countless times. And He's speaking to you, too. God loves you so much, and though it may seem like a foreign concept, God's love for you is not strange to Him. It is natural and abounding. God wants you to know that.