because I wasted so much time whining today

I know he wants me to love him: he pursues me relentlessly. He isn't afraid of me, doesn't sit there with his feet dangling in the water like I'm too much for him, but dives in and knows everything about me. He listens when I talk to him or at him--he pays attention and learns what's buried, hidden deep inside my heart.

He created me beautiful but I was conceived deformed, tainted, diseased with a fetish for getting myself into trouble. He never tires of saving me from the stupid nonsense I get myself into. He forgives me when I ask him to.

And ultimately it came to this: he heard a threat that we would be apart for all of eternity, so he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave and becoming like us in all ways (except sin)--and how glorious! His mercy stood between me and death, stood separating me from death, and he destroyed the one who threatened me. He risked his life for my sake--and he died.

I wept until I had emptied myself, wept knowing I was empty of any way to repay him, wept for my sheer unworthiness of this total, self-emptying love. Wept that I had not made amends for the last few times I denied him. Wept that I had failed him so many times and he fulfilled what I would not have dared to ask him.

Water flowed from my eyes and from his side. Blood splashed on the ground, washing me, making me clean. Whole. Glorious.

I felt a hand on my cheek and a thumb gently wiping my tears. The fingers under my chin strengthened and lifted it up. I raised my eyes and looked up through the warm tears that clung to my eyelashes. I saw him. Alive. He had survived death. He had died so that I could live and he came out alive.

He helped me to my feet and I laid my head against his chest. The strength of his arms surrounded me and I closed my eyes, breathing in the sweet scent of burial perfumes. And there I rested. Safe.

Originally published Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008 at Maple Footprints.