For all the times...

 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,  that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

  — John 3፥16 (NIV)

For all the times I looked back to what you rescued me from just to turn myself into a pillar of salt, to the moments I preferred to call Sodom and Gomorrah home and feel nostalgic to the old days of hell just to be stuck on the past and not be able to move forward to the place you called me to...

From all the times I laughed when you promised to give me a child thinking that it was impossible for a woman in her nineties to bear a child, to the hours I told you the intensities of my problems instead of relying on your power...

For all the times I became stiff-necked, for the days I couldn't wait for you to hand me your instructions and bowed to a force that I called my "backup plan" when you were the one who brought me out of Egypt...

For all the times I cheated on you and become loved by another just to tie myself into slavery, for the times you had to buy me for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and lethek of barley to bring me home...

For the times I told you that I am ugly when you made me fearfully and wonderfully... 

From the times I was hypocritical enough to reject the food you provided me from heaven calling it impure when you made it clean, to the times I forgot that I was saved by Grace and rejected my brothers and sisters...

And most of all, to the times I denied that I knew you before a servant girl. To the times I disowned you three times before the rooster crows two times...

What excuses do I have to defend myself? I could say that the serpent told me to do so as eve did, but deep down my heart knows I chose those decisions on my own. I was in love with the darkness and too frightened by the light. 

And yet, you chose to speak in my defense before the father. When my ship was wrecked, you brought me to dry land. You filled my lungs with air. And when there was left only a step between me and death, you became my bridge to the other side.

I was mistaken when I believed that I had to offer something to be loved. Because I see now that true love is unconditional, it doesn't depend on the receiver. Rather it freely offers.

My only wish left now is that someday, if I am lucky enough, I would learn to love like you.