Everyone knows that God loves them with their head, but how many people really experience it. Brennan Manning shares his experience in his book, “Refections for Ragamuffins”. “In the winter of 1968-69, I lived in a cave in the mountains of the Zaragosa Desert in Spain. On the night of December 13, during what began as a long and lonely hour of prayer, I heard in faith Jesus Christ say, for love of you I left my Father’s side. I came to you who ran from me, Fled me, who did not want to hear my name. For love of you I was covered with spit, punched, beaten, and affixed to the wood of the cross. These words are burned on my life. Whether I am in a state of grace or disgrace, elation or depression, that night of fire quietly burns on. I looked at the crucifix for a long time, figuratively saw the blood streaming from every pore of His body, heard the cry of His wounds: “This isn’t a joke. It is not a laughing matter to Me that I have loved you”. The longer I looked, the more I realized that no man has ever loved me and no one ever could love me as He did. I went out of the cave, stood on the practices, and shouted into the darkness, Jesus, are you crazy? Are you out of your mind to have loved me so much? I learned that night what a wise old man had told me years earlier: “Only the one who has experienced it can know what the love of Jesus Christ is. Once you have experienced it, nothing else in the world will seem more beautiful or desirable.”