Images influence our relationship with God. If we imagine God as fearsome, we will feel fearful as we relate to God. If we imagine God as loving, we will feel cared for by God. God, of course, is beyond all images but we choose which to hold or emphasize. The most basic image necessary to the process of The Spiritual Exercises consists of God as loving Creator.

Recollections of love in our lives can engender our belief that God loves each of us. If we can recall experiences of human love, we can believe that God’s love for us is even greater.

On an October retreat day, Puget Sound retreat directors offered some of their own images to form a figurative “story cloth” of God’s loving presence in their lives:

“When I was a little girl, I would call God on my pink toy telephone.”

“With the birth of our first child, the depth of protective, sacrificial love I experienced astonished me. I finally understood the unconditional love of the Father.”

“My grandmother would say ‘I love you’ and I knew without a doubt that she did.”

“I remember snuggling on the couch with Dad as we napped together.”

“I remember when my husband and I first got the call saying that there was a baby girl we could adopt. I still remember the smell of that baby’s fresh skin.”

“Grandmother gave hugs that were ‘soft and squishy’.”

“God flings us into creation as playfully and as carefully as a father throws his children into the air.”

We invite you to take time each day to seek the grace of knowing, at a deeply personal level, how much you are loved by God. Smile with your recollections of being loved. Bless these moments of love over and over in your imagination and rest assured that you are loved even when you can’t bring such moments immediately to mind. God’s love is the very ground of our being. As Bernadette Farrell writes: God of laughter . . . God of sorrow . . . in our resting . . . in our dreaming . . . loving maker . . . Everyday God . . . come be with us.