A Love Letter

Mostly, I just want you to know that you are loved and capable of loving.

You are loved and capable of loving.

I want you to be able to rest in that, to know that no matter what you do or don't do, you are loved. You didn't have to earn it, you don't have to maintain it, you won't have to struggle to keep it. You are loved not because someone else is insecure or because someone else is seeking to make you the answer to a problem they need to solve for themselves or because someone without a center has made you the most valuable thing in their life. You are loved because you are you. You are good. You are worthy. You are dear. You matter so much. You are loved.

I know it's hard to accept that. All the wisdom in the world says that nothing comes from nothing, that nothing is truly free, that there is always some give and take, and I guess that might be true most of the time. We all do things that frustrate other people, things that push other people away or at least keep them at a distance, things that hurt other people, and maybe we feel like that disqualifies us from just being loved. Or maybe we're aware of the brokenness in other people and the holes in their hearts that they're trying to fill and we know that it's not us who should meet those needs. We're pretty sure that love of every kind comes with strings attached, preconditions, expectations. We're just being prudent by being dubious about accepting love.

But you are loved, truly, deeply, and unshakably, and I pray that you can see that, and trust it. Feel it. Let it be your security, your resting place. Let it be the foundation on which you build your life, the wellspring from which everything you do flows. You are loved and capable of loving. Love isn't desperate or grasping. Love doesn't take away from you. Love adds. Love is secure and giving. And you have that. You can do that.

I want love to surround you, to show up in your life in a million different ways. I want the love woven into the good world around us to make itself obvious to you, to carry you along day by day. I want the love that grows in all your relationships of every kind to be vibrant and true, despite the brokenness in yourself and in others, and I want it to bring you life. I want you to have work that enables you to love, work that either gives back into the world or gives you the funds you need to do that on your own, in your own way. God, I want you to be happy. I want things to go well. I want time to slip by without any new tragedies or horrors. I want it to be abundantly clear that love is above us and below us and in front of us and behind us and around us and in us. I want love to buoy you up, to give you the strength and the hope and the courage to heal and to grow and to give. I want you to know that you are loved and capable of loving.

I know it's hard, in this time and in every time, to believe this about ourselves and others. I know. I know we have more work in front of us than we will ever be able to complete. I know the reality of the suffering and sorrow all around us, the damage that's been done to the good world. I know the damage that we've sustained. But it's important to me that we try to believe this, that we hold this as true, that we embrace it and allow it to make us more than what we've been so that we can do the work and heal the damage. You are loved and capable of loving, always and everywhere. You are loved and capable of loving. You are loved and capable of loving.

I just wanted you to know that.