That question brought me up short.  I’m re-reading Michele Cushatt’s book, “I Am”, and the question came at the end of Day 3.  The full question was “How loved do you feel on a scale of 1-10?”

And I didn’t know how to answer it.

What does love even feel like?  Does it feel safe? Warm? Somehow full? Is it defined more by how it doesn’t feel – like tight, pinched, small, stressed?  Somehow that doesn’t seem right.  I might feel relaxed.  But that isn’t the same as feeling loved.

How would you describe what being loved feels like?  Does it mean you only feel that and nothing else?  Or does feeling loved override every other feeling – like pain, insecurity, or worry?

Am I the only one who got stuck on what seems like a simple question?  Or is it really as deep as it feels to me?

The closest answer I could give was that feeling love feels like being fully alive.  Being a part of all things, seeing and experiencing everything more deeply, richly.  Vibrant.  And yet even that seems to be somewhat flawed.  Because feeling that way depends somewhat on how much energy I have.  How well I slept, the food I ate, or whether I exercised.

Now let’s say you and I have been able to describe what we think the feeling of love is like.  Now how do we rate it?  Is it in your body?  Mind?  Actions?  It’s easy for me to say I know that God loves me.  It’s another thing entirely to feel it.  As I wrote about this in my journal, I wonder aloud whether sometimes acting as if helps develop and grow the feelings.  If living out the truth of that love could help me feel it.  If it could help you too.

What if I choose to be vulnerable when it feels scary?  What if I choose to more toward rather than away?  What if I choose to stay with the thing that makes me feel inferior, rejected, or emotionally triggered?  And what if you do the same?  Does working through those hard emotions bring us past them to where we feel the love we so desperately seek?

I’m not sure.  And I don’t want to create a project out of it either.  At the same time, I see places in the Bible where the writer tells us to focus on the ultimate goal, and throw off entanglements.  Or to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

And I wonder.  Would acting as if we feel loved every minute of every day help us to actually feel that way?  Instead of fluctuating depending on the circumstances at any given moment? Is there a way to stand in the truth of that love so that we’d rate how loved we are at 8, 9, or even 10?  More often than not?

And, even more important, what difference would feeling that loved make in not only our lives, but also the lives of those who live or work with us?  What might we dare to do that we don’t do now?  How big might our life get because we’re not so afraid? How much brighter might our light shine?  How much more could we help and serve others?

Just imagine how different the world would be.

Just to let you know, at the time I wrote in my journal, after feeling unable to truly define what feeling loved actually felt like, I gave it a 4.  That minute.  Later in the day it went up to 6.  Maybe even 7.  And again I wondered, “What changed it – action, circumstances, or meditation?”

I’d love to know what you think.  How you define feeling loved.  How loved you feel.  What gets in the way of receiving that kind of love.  And whether you think action can bring the feelings out or not.  Because I really don’t know.  Right now I’ve left it as an open question with God.

So if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Feel free to share in the comments.