Good News From God

My Story

— The Most Perfect Love Story —

— by John Bush

There was a cloud of loneliness that hung over my head during my years growing up. I was searching for something without even knowing it. I had friends through elementary school and high school, but not as many as I needed. My view of my self worth was wobbling at a fragile state.

At twenty years old I met a special girl. We dated, and had fun. She was filling that empty area in my lonely life. Our relationship grew closer, and I believed she was the one for me—the one to fill that hole in my heart. And when I didn’t think that things could get any better, they didn’t.

Her heart breaking words to me were, “I think we should just be friends.”

“Friends?” I must have repeated over and over. Just when I thought things were getting perfect, and my life worth living, the bottom falls out and I’m left with that lingering loneliness all over again. What to do?

In the hour following that crushing news I went to my church, sat in my Sunday spot, and, with tears in my eyes, bowed my head and asked God to help me. Whatever was the solution to my problem, I was now looking to God to show me the way.

A month or two later, I saw a girl in a college class who I was madly in love with… back in the third grade. I believed I was back in “real” life once more. Then it happened again. She announced that she was going to be leaving to another country to do some volunteer work. My heart was broken one more time. I must have believed that this time my condition was fatal.

Then came that day that a friend wanted to introduce me to a girl. (I sure didn’t put up any resistance to that idea.) At my very first sight of her, my eyes said that this could just be the one. Maybe even an answer to that prayer those months back.

During the year that followed, with a large amount of dating, the word “marriage” began to work its way into my thoughts, and then, ultimately, a proposal. She was definitely the one. But it was in her pastor’s office talking about our desire for him to marry us that he asked that Bible-based question that I was not prepared for.

“Have you been born again?” he asked.

I had gone to church all my life. But I had never before heard the term being “born again.” With my answer of “No,” and some time of him sharing a few Bible verses, I decided that I wanted what the Bible said I must have to one day be in heaven.

That was back in 1968. It wasn’t my marriage, though, to the sweetheart of my life that made that cloud of loneliness vanish away. Those years of searching led me to the only One who had the answer to my need. It wasn’t fixing my social life that was to bring me happiness. Not even the perfect romance. It was placing my faith in the Savior of the world—making Him my Savior—that was the answer to the peace my heart was searching for.

My ever-nagging loneliness, a lack of life direction, and sin areas that would not go away were only going to be fixed through faith in Jesus Christ and what He did for me on that cross so many years ago.

I bowed my head and prayed in that pastor’s office and asked Jesus to forgive my sin, come into my life, be my Savior, and give me the needed power over the sin areas in my life. During the past forty plus years, God’s perfect love has never left me and always remained my stronghold through my life’s needs. God’s perfect love for me, and the assurance of going to heaven—that is what my heart had longed for over all those years. The Bible had the answer to the need in my life. I just needed to accept it.

Only God offers the most perfect love—love that will never, ever leave you.

(See John 1:12, 3:1-3, 3:16-18, 5:24, 14:6)

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