God's Love

I've been trying to understand God's love for me for years. When I was first saved I felt God's presence just about everyday and I never seemed to doubt God's love for me. But as you go on down this narrow road of Christianity, I believe God withdraws His presence (or at least the feeling of it) from you so that you will learn to trust Him more and so that you will seek Him more. It's very hard for me though because I tend to think God loves like us humans do, and that just isn't true. You see, we humans often love with a conditional love. It's usually only very rarely do we love with an unconditional love, and usually that unconditional love is reserved for our family. I find it very hard to distinguish between God's love for me and human love for me. The only people in this life that have truly loved me for who I was (warts and all), and regardless of the mistakes I make are my husband, kids, and my family. Everyone else has either never really loved me or only loved me dependant upon my good works, or if I acted perfect etc. Now, God's love for me is so much more than my hubby, kids, and family's love for me yet I have the hardest time accepting His perfect unconditional love. The thing is, I know all my shortcomings, I know all my failures, I know my heart is blacker than the night sky and yet often times I think "How can God love me when I'm so filthy, when I do this wrong or say that wrong?" I cry out to God to change me, to make me more like Him, to forgive me for my failures and sin, but then I don't let myself believe that He loves me warts and all. I think because all throughout life I've been hurt by so many people (who hasn't right? LOL) and I wrongfully put God in that same box as them. It's not fair to God, and frankly it's unbelief on my part. I know what the Bible says. I've read all the amazing stories in the Bible like that of King David who commited adultery and then murder, then repented and yet God still loved David no matter what David had done. One of my favorite verses is Romans 8:38-39 which says that nothing can seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Yet I still doubt His love for me. I think maybe the main root of it is that I don't truly love myself. You see when people who you trust and love stop loving you or they don't truly love you for who you are, then I end up thinking that I must be unlovable. I don't see any reason why people or God should love me. If only I could get past this, to not associate human love with God's love for me. I think having kids has started the ball rolling in the right direction, as when I look at my babies I know that there is nothing on this earth that could seperate them from my love. No matter what they do, no matter what they say, no matter if they end up hating me one day, I will always love them and give my life for them. And I know in my head that that's how God feels about me, but my heart doesn't seem to grasp it. And the times when I don't feel His presence, or hear His voice, I automatically put it down to "what have I done wrong. He must not really love me". Seriously, I've had thoughts that Romans 8:38-39 must have been written to everyone else in this world except for me. What a stupid thought! It's just reminding myself everyday, that nothing I do or say will ever seperate me from God's love. What an amazing love God is! How He could love imperfect people, sinful people, even people who hate Him, it's just incredible. Mind blowing actually. So I think what needs to happen is, I need to learn to love myself and stop listening to what other people think about me, I need to not doubt God's love for me. Wow, that was really quite theraputic for me lol, even if no one else reads this haha.