This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:9-11

The world is in love with love. Our stories, our songs, our daydreams and our fairytales all echo the narrative of finding the one who loves us. And yet, the truth of the love described in these tales is askew. Again and again the protagonist yearns for love and feels alone. So they go on a journey. The learn, they grow, they get a makeover and The Dress and polish themselves up in to a newer, better, shinier version of themselves. And then the happier ever after begins.

This is not true love. That is the American bootstraps narrative, packaged in sparkly pink paper. True love is a covenant love. For better or worse, In sickness and health. It is a love that finds an orphan in a field and loves them back to life, no matter what happens next. It is a love based on promise and on forever, not on reciprocation or worthiness.

We have not done anything to deserve being loved. We simply aren’t good enough. We didn’t earn the sacrifice of Christ or the loving eye of God. Yet we have it, a gift. We can choose to inhabit that love, without needing to pretty ourselves up first.

Friend, you are loved. At your lowest. At your most depressed, your least productive. Your most negative and pessimistic. On the days when you feel unworthy, like you are a square in a world of soft round edges. You are loved when you feel weak or tired or angry or undone. You have value because it is an essential part of who you are, unconnected to your own efforts or actions.

You are loved when you are trying too hard, manically trying to prove yourself to the world. Not for your efforts, but despite of them. You are loved when your priorities are wrong, when you chase after bright sparkly things that turn up empty. You are loved at your best, you are loved at your worst. You are loved because your essential character is precious. You are unique and important to the world. Created that way. On purpose.

On this week of Advent, as we dive deep into love, allow yourself permission to sink your toes into the soft warmth of this love. To feel lifted and secure in the knowledge that you can’t do anything to earn more of it, and you can’t do anything to mess it up. God’s love is there, surrounding us like oxygen. Part of our very DNA. And because of this, we have love to spare. Love to give this world and to invest in relationship, in creativity, in passion. It’s like magic, tingling at the ends of our fingertips, ready to give back to the world. It is who you are. Shine bright. Not as an obligation, but as a gift.