To say my relationship and journey with religion has been tumultuous would be a pretty epic understatement. I went through times of unfounded faith, doubt, hate, agnosticism, and back around to a deep-rooted relationship with Jesus. I can remember when I was in my late teens and early twenties I would say “I didn’t ask Jesus to die for my sins”.
I felt like God expected me to follow his rules and be a “good Christian” because he had done something for me that I didn’t ask for. I didn’t want or need his grace or forgiveness or sacrifice. I felt like I was being guilted into religion and I was not here for it.
Last year I stepped back into a church for the first time in years. I had no intention of liking it, or building a relationship with God. I was doing a favor for a friend, and I made it clear in my heart that nothing had changed, and no sermon was going to sway me to bow down to some invisible presence and thank him for something I never asked him to do.
Then one day it was like a lightbulb popped on in my brain. Like when you can’t think of a specific word then suddenly an hour later you remember it as easily as your own name. I didn’t ask Jesus to die for my sins. But he did it anyway. He didn't need to be asked to provide salvation for humanity, he wanted to.
I didn’t ask for grace. I didn’t ask for forgiveness. I didn’t ask for unconditional love, but God was there waiting with it when I realized I wanted it. Thousands of years before I existed, Jesus decided that he loved me, and that I was worthy of unconditional, endless love, even when I didn’t feel it. He loved me when I hated him. He loved me when I stopped believing. He loved me when I reluctantly stepped into a church in May of 2021 with hate and grief on my heart.
Today, as we commemorate and celebrate the day Jesus sacrificed everything for us, I can’t help but think of the moment not that long ago when I was sitting in a small church in Saline and the lightbulb popped on.
I know this sounds preachy, but even if religion isn’t your thing, there’s a lesson here. Like Jesus, there are people in this world who love us unconditionally. People who love us on our good days and our bad days. People who have decided they love us, and whose minds cannot and will not be changed. We don’t have to earn their love. We don’t have to accomplish tasks to be worthy of their affection.
As someone who has spent agonizing years terrified that the people in my life would suddenly stop loving me, there is a much-needed peace to accepting and believing that love is not conditional. My mom isn’t going to stop loving me because I don’t vocalize my appreciation for her. My husband isn’t going to fall out of love with me because my anxiety attacks are hard to handle. My best friends aren’t going to start hating me because I’m not perfect.
There’s nothing I could ever do to lose that love in my life. Not from my friends, my family, or my God. There’s nothing the people I love could ever do to stop me from loving them. No one is keeping a chart of our actions to determine whether or not we deserve to be loved on any given day. And whether you feel that love from Jesus, from your family, from friends, or from your cat, please feel it deeply.
Feel it at your best and worst. Feel it no matter what. Because love, spiritual or otherwise, is unconditional, and you are worthy of love at every single moment.
