I flipped through a recent issue of a popular woman’s magazine the other day on the bus. Its main theme was love, and articles covered the subject from all sides. There were sweet, funny, and heartwarming stories—but others were painful, sad, and downright heartbreaking. It struck me that many people have trouble with love.

I’ve been there. I’ve been in love, and experienced the highs associated with the sentiment. And I’ve been disappointed by it, too—more than once.

But despite what’s documented and discussed in the magazines, the books, and the talk shows, I’ve discovered that finding real love isn’t hard. It’s not something you have to search for, work at, or be lucky enough to experience. Love is actually God.

Love, the Father-Mother of us all, doesn’t cause pain or unhappiness. His love doesn’t have highs and lows, good times and bad. God’s love can’t be distorted by jealousy or indifference. Experiencing God’s love is beautiful and healing. And it’s something that each one of us, as the child of God, can awake to.

We don’t have to do anything to get God’s love. It’s already ours, even if we’re currently unaware of this rich blessing. Becoming more conscious of this divinely bestowed love can be as simple as claiming it for our own.

When we actively express God’s love unselfishly, we’re happier and have more satisfying relationships. Loving the way God loves blesses in a big way.

I know that in my life, the love that most consistently approximates the love of God is what I’ve felt for my daughter, Lucia. Loving her has taught me many things about the endless fount of love that is God.

While I’m still working at better expressing Love, I’m definitely more unselfish than I was before Lucia entered my world. Thinking about her has kept me on the right path more than once. I just don’t want to be less than the kind of mother my daughter deserves to have.

And I’ve grown stronger, and stood up for myself in ways I wasn’t able to when it was just about me. It’s often said that you can’t really love your neighbor until you love yourself. I’ve found that I’ve come to love myself more completely because of this pure love I have for my “neighbor,” Lucia.

I’m actually not surprised, since our adventure together has been firmly grounded in Love from the beginning. Lucia was born on a Tuesday. I was to be released from the hospital on Thursday. But that morning, something was wrong. I felt unwell and had a fever. My obstetrician diagnosed the flu and said I’d have to remain in the hospital another day.

Soon after he left the room, I was shivering so hard the bed was shaking. I was freezing, so I rang for the nurse and asked for another blanket. I rapidly felt worse and hit the call button again, managing only to say “Help” before passing out. It was later determined that I had a blood infection.

When I came to, there were two nurses in my room, along with my husband, Dean. The nurses were doing what they could to bring the fever down safely. I asked them if the situation was bad and one of them said “Yes, this is very serious.”

I could tell from her tone that she meant it, and it occurred to me that she thought I might die. I remember thinking “I’ve waited my whole life for this baby, and I’m not going anywhere now.” At that point, I told Dean to call the Christian Science practitioner who’d prayed for me and our baby throughout my pregnancy.

When Dean got the practitioner on the phone, I heard him start to explain what was going on. I reached for the receiver and heard my friend say with authority, “‘Perfect love casteth out fear’ and your life just increased in love one hundredfold with the birth of this baby.” With that, the fever broke (something the nurses were clearly not expecting), and I felt instantly well. I felt God’s love and was healed. It was an incredibly powerful experience.

Since there was nothing for the nurse assigned to me to do, we spent the day chatting. She told me I’d had a fever of 107.9° F (42.2° C), and she couldn’t believe that I’d been lucid throughout much of the experience. She’d never heard of an adult who’d survived a fever that high without sustaining massive brain damage.

I didn’t reason out anything prayerfully at that moment. The healing happened so quickly that I didn’t have time. But the phrase “perfect love casteth out fear” comes from a section in the Bible where John discusses the immense love God has for His children and how this wipes out discord. Fear is cast out by God’s love.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, plainly gave the remedy to fever in her book Science and Health. She wrote, “Destroy fear, and you end fever.” It’s that easy. My fear was eradicated by an awareness of Love, and I was healed.

Of course, I’m glad I didn’t die or suffer any ill effects, but I’m most grateful for the all-embracing love I felt from God that day. The thought of it is always there when I need it most, to remind me of the never-ending love that’s my divine heritage.

This understanding of and familiarity with Love has not only improved my health, but also my relationships with friends, family, and even strangers. God loves each of us, and as we love our neighbors the way He loves us, we can experience love without heartache. This love is solid, satisfying, joyous, and beautiful.

Living this way is not an impossible dream or the unattainable perfection of a romance novel. It’s living the life that we were created to live—a spiritually love-filled life.

Love heals:

Science and Health

•  376:26-27

 King James Bible

• I John 4:18