Today at The Church at Avenue South, Aaron Bryant spoke about Adam and Eve in the garden. He talked about how ever since the Fall, we all have been presenting to others what we’d like to be and who we think others want us to be instead of who we really are.

I love the fact that God sees it all, sees past the masks and bravado and posturing to the frightened and wounded people beneath and chooses to love us anyway.

He sees the parts of us that even we have a hard time looking at. He knows all the deep dark secrets and the shame of what we’ve done in moments of weakness and fear.

It’s not a wink-wink kind of love that excuses our behavior like an overindulgent parent but a love that refuses to accept anything less that His best for us in us. A love that refuses to let us accept anything but God’s best for our lives.

It’s a love that will literally stop at nothing until it finishes its good work in us. And what is that good work? That we end up looking like Jesus and becoming our truest selves in the process.

God loves me just like I am but His love brings out the best in me. More accurately, it brings out His best in me and His best for me.

No matter how often I forget who I am by pretending to be something else or lose my purpose by trying to fit someone else’s idea of who I should be, God’s patient and perfect love for me will never ever change.

I love that about God.