Yet so often we can't make that "leap of faith" to recognize that God loves each of us with the most perfect, infinite love. Not a general, impersonal love for all of humankind as if we were some amorphous blob. Think of the person who loves you most in this world. How he or she has seen you at your worst and your best, knows your personality's gifts and drawbacks, watches with compassion your failures and successes. THAT'S how God loves each of us - with complete, infinite, perfect, devoted attention to who we are.
After all, we name God as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That plurality dates back to the first book, Genesis, in which God says "Let us make man in our image." PLURAL: "us" and "our." The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all clearly different Persons. From the beginning, we discover that, as Fr. Richard Rohr says, "there is an intrinsic plurality to goodness." And there is a clear diversity in creation. Our God much prefers diversity and variety to uniformity.
So when God looks at you, God doesn't want a "repeat" of your parents, and God doesn't want you to be someone with the same personality as your dearest friend. All God wants from you is for you to BE you. God wants you to give yourself to Him as a unique present, decorated with a bow on top. Your wrapping. Your ribbon. Your bow.
All God wants from you is you. And there are no ifs, ands, or buts. God isn't saying "I'd love you if only you weren't an addictive personality." God isn't saying "I'd love you if only you weren't schizophrenic or highly anxious or bi-polar." God isn't saying "I'd love you, but you're not the President of the Company, you're only a janitor." God isn't saying "I'd love you if only you were a better person so I could make you rich and famous."
God isn't saying "I'd love you if you had a different sexual orientation, or were a different race or religion, or had a higher I.Q." God isn't saying "I'd love you but you're crippled and you have dementia." God isn't saying "I'd love you but you committed adultery way back when, and, even if you repented, I can't forget." God doesn't operate that way. That isn't Who God is. God knew exactly who you were and who you'd be when He formed you in your mother's uterus. God chooses diversity! God even forgives and forgets the diversity of our sins. All God asks is that you work with what you've got to the best of your ability.
God created you with heaven on God's mind. God is planning the perfect experience of heaven for you. Yes, heaven will be experiencing God. But heaven will also be experiencing that "new heavens and new earth" that God promised us. And you can believe that there will be diversity! Fr. Richard Rohr says
"Heaven is precisely not uniformity. The diversity of heaven was never something I considered in my earlier years. I thought we were all handed the same white robe and standard issue harp, assigned to an identical cloud for all eternity." But later Fr. Rohr realized that he was wrong, that heaven is not a "big-box, strip-mall, McHeaven franchise." He remembered that Jesus described the ineffable diversity of heaven when he said "In my Father's house there are many mansions." (John 14:2.)
If someone asked you to describe your perfect house in your perfect geographical locale, what would you say? A castle on the River Rhine? A chalet in the Alps? A small hut positioned over a tropical lagoon? A log cabin in the deep woods? A luxurious condo in the heart of a vibrant, cosmopolitan city? A Southern mansion nestled among fields and streams with a backdrop of mountains? Maybe all of them, depending on your mood? God has prepared a mansion, an experience of heaven, that will be totally satisfying for each of us.
No one knows precisely what God has in store for us. Only that we trust that we'll be surrounded by all those whom we love, and that the experiences God has planned for each of us as individuals will keep us growing - learning more and loving more deeply. We'll continue exploring the vastness of our own immortal souls. We'll be joyfully occupied for eternity, each in our own way, at our own pace. And deeply, perfectly, contented.
The greatest joy of heaven for you will be this: God will look into your face with soft, loving eyes and a tender smile precisely for you. He'll cup your face in His hands as if you were precious as a royal crown of splendor. At that miraculous moment, you will know throughout your whole being that for all eternity all God wants from you is you. Who you are is enough.