Have you ever really tried to comprehend God's love for you? Have you ever really, really experienced it so that it makes you weep with joy?

There was a time in my life when I would sit still and pray every morning by simply asking, "God, what do you want me to know, today?"  Many, many mornings I would simply feel God's love come over me.  Most of all, God wanted me to understand that I was loved.

In 1955 Maya Angelou, who would eventually become a poet, educator, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director, was in a vocal class with Frederick Wilkerson reading a passage out loud to the group assembled there.

She had been a dancer all her life and would later become famous as the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the inaugural Poet for the United States in 1993.  But at this point she was still very young and was taking vocal lessons to enhance her career as a dancer. 

Wilkerson called himself a "vocal technician."  He worked with Roberta Flack and many famous opera singers.  Maya Angelou was friends with "Wilkie" and he rented a room in her house. Once a month, he gathered his students together to read aloud.

Dr. Angelou  was reading along and came to, "God loves me."

"Read that again," said Wilkie. "God loves me," she said.

"Read it again." he said to her.  And she began to feel really, really tense.  She and Wilkie were the only black people there.  She was young and he had other students who were serious singers, and they were all white and all older.  She felt he was making her look foolish in her own house in front of these sophisticated whites.

He said, "Read it again. Read it again."

Finally she shouted it out defiantly, "GOD...LOVES...ME!"

Dr. Angelou told me about how she felt in that moment:

"I heard Him.  In that instant in my life I knew that I was a child of God...and knowing it then, I know it all the time fresh.  Just saying it makes me thrill, in the classic sense.  I mean, my body---Wheeew!  

"At that moment, I had to leave the room. I started weeping...with the knowledge of it.  And I could do it again right now.  That which made the seas and mountains, made stars and moons, and goldfish...That loves me?!! 

"It was a freedom...a relief...a license to try to do all the good in the world. If That loves me then I can do anything good.  You see?"

If you have not felt, deeply felt, the love of God (or even if you have) pray this prayer with me:

God, I ask You to open my heart, my eyes and my mind, that I may truly experience Your love and let that change the way I live my life.  Understanding how much You love me would help me to have unlimited love for myself, for others and for the world we live in.   Let me know Your love, and be Your love in the world.

Bonnie St. John