i'm reading The God who Loves You by Peter Kreeft now and it's a really good read. i started reading it on Thursday and i'm not even half-way through cos i'm reading the book paragraph by paragraph, literally. there's so much to think about, so much to comprehend, that i really couldn't bring myself to race through the book like how i race through other books. wouldn't be doing it justice, neither would i be doing the whole concept of God's love for me any justice.

you know, the whole truth about God's love for me is so simple, and yet it's something that can't be grasped quite so easily. i can't, anyway. over and over again, i realise with new and renewed fervour and conviction that God loves me simply because i'm me. not because i've been a good girl, not because i'm pretty, smart, kind, loving, humble, or whatever. not because i'm doing what he wants me to do either. God loves me because i'm Kelly, i'm me. that's all there is to it. if i were born less kind, less humble, less contrite, less anything, God still loves me the same. he loves me for my flaws, my vulnerabilities, my insecurities, my goodness, my everything.

that's why the poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning is SO apt when we talk about God's love, i just realised. sonnet 43, the one that goes: how do i love thee? let me count the ways.

Sonnet #43
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


God doesn't say why do i love thee, or let me list out why. he says HOW do i love thee, and let me count the ways. can anyone love someone so freely, so unconditionally? when a boyfriend tells a girlfriend that he loves her, she usually smiles and asks: why? and he supplies his reasons. because you're beautiful inside and out, because you're such a special individual, because you light up my life. all very beautiful reasons, definitely. but imagine if he told her: i love you simply because you're you, that's all there is to it. i love you for all the bad things you're going to do and have done, i love you for all the wonderful things you're going to do and have done, i love you for who you are, was, and are going to become.

ha i promise you, she'll never ask "why" again. after all, what else would she want to hear? what else could he say that she hasn't heard yet?

same thing with God. if he tells me that he loves me and i ask why, and he tells me all i've said above, then how can i ask him why again next time when he tells me that he loves me? he already said that he loves me for everything i am, and why? because i'm me. i can't even ask "will you still love me even if i'm bad tomorrow?" he already said he loves me for all the bad things i'm going to do tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come.

imagine if you could love someone the same way that God loves us all. if you could love someone simply because he's him or she's her, come what may. if you could love someone today and for always knowing how imperfect he or she is, knowing he or she is perfectly liable of doing something horrible that could hurt you the very next day, month, year, whatever. and still love him or her nonetheless. imagine if you could love someone knowing that he or she doesn't love you, like how God loves us all even though so many of us don't love him too. or even when i do tell him that i love him, the "love" wavers when things don't go well in my life. unconditonally, without that awful need for reciprocation, without the desire to feel wanted in that person's life too.

you know, eros as sexual desire has been sorely and sadly misinterpretated. eros isn't merely sexual desire. it's desire, period. it could be an artist madly and passionately in love with his art, a chef who eats, sleeps and breathes recipes and cooking techniques, a poet who thinks of nothing but words because he's in love with writing. they do all these to fulfill some form of desire in themselves. eros has been painted as something bad, as something to be completely quashed out because it's often tangled up with lust. a huge part of romantic love. but not all romantic love is bad. agape also constitutes a lot of romantic love, the unselfish, unadulterated form of love which God lavishes on us so unconditionally.

okay, i shall share more later if i have the time. i have to go shower and leave for more CNY house-visiting.
i have a ton of webcasts to do and i'm really drowning in work. did all my ministry work late last night out of sheer necessity and some guilt for having neglected it all, and i'm so tired now! even though i slept for 8 hours.

how do i love thee? let me count the ways.