A few weeks ago, a friend said, "You seem to really believe God loves you." He has seen me at moments of faith crisis in the past three years... So, coming from him, this is a pretty weighty statement. During my wife's health struggles, I had at times felt that God did not love me. I felt that he loved my wife and cared nothing for me. It felt that my dreams, desires, etc didn't matter to God... He threw me under the bus to take care of my wife. She was valuable to Him... I was expendable. Or so I felt. My friend followed up his statement with a question, "How did you come to know and FEEL that God loves you?" I had a bit of a hard time formulating this into a cohesive thought... but it came about through the health trial that my wife and I were battling. Later, it became really clear. I know that God loves me BECAUSE he sent me into the desert... into a place of trial and testing... so that I would reach the end of my strength, and then turn to him alo