I found another blast from the past — a post I wrote 13 years ago pre-Wordpress. It’s funny how the words are the same but the way I look at them now is different. It was me attempting to write from God’s point of view on how He sees each of His children:

“You don’t ever have to be ashamed of who I made you to be. You don’t have to apologize for being you. You are special. I created you exactly the way I wanted you to be and when you were hopelessly lost in sin and misery I redeemed you for My own. You have a purpose, a reason, something that makes you come alive. Even if no one else thinks you matter, I DO! Believe that I love you, not because I have to, but because I choose to. Hear the sound of my Voice singing over you tonight and know how deep that love goes. I will never change and My love for you will never change, so you can rest in it. I will not leave you as you are, but will through trial and tribulations make you who you were always meant to be– My perfect image-bearer.”

If you take away nothing else from this, rest in the knowledge that God loves you as you are and not as you should be (with much gratitude to Brennan Manning for coming up with that one). His love is redeeming, refining, restoring kind of love that brings out all the beauty and splendor of what God had in mind when He made you and me. His love stops at nothing short of us looking like Jesus and being every bit of who He created us to be.