Come as you are.

Whenever you love somebody, there’s usually a list. “I love you because of ___.” Your voice. Your hair. Your confidence. The way you crinkle your nose when you laugh. How you change your mind a hundred times at the drive-thru. How you bend down to a child to speak to them at eye level. How you look in a mean dress.But at the bottom of this long list, God always adds one more. He says, “I love you just-because.” No specific reason, not based on externals, and not even based on anything we say or do. It just is. Because we all get old and gray. We all change over a lifetime. The reasons that others love us never stay the same, because we are a people in progress shaped by the edges of time. God loves us when our souls turn ugly, when we are cowardly and crass, when we fail and stumble, when we lose patience at the drive-thru and set a poor example for children. He loves us when the dress stops fitting. He loves us when those who’ve seen our underbelly silently walk away. Our God is the God who stays when everyone else leaves. And when our voice fades, when our hair is gone, when we can hardly laugh without pain: God loves us just because. He can’t help it. This is who He is, regardless of who we are, because His love does not reside in a list. His love is free. It is reckless. It is forever.

Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.

It’s December, and I have learnt that you can be both strong and fragile, all at the same time. So, when you feel like you have fallen apart so many times before this year, don’t forget the strength that has always been holding you up.