You Are Loved.

When Theodore was born, he was not well.

He had to be taken to the special care unit, and for the first few days of his life that is where he stayed. I still remember being in the unit in the middle of the night, two or three in the morning, sitting beside him, completely delirious with exhaustion, surrounded by the constant loud beeping of the machines watching his breathing and his heart.

He was in an oxygen tank, and for two whole days, we could not hold him. We could not pick him up when he stirred, could not feed him, or change his nappy. We could not do anything.

And I have never in my life felt love like it.

He had done nothing. He could do nothing. He could not smile at me, could not say my name, could not give me a single thing in return. He did not even know I was there.

He was about as small and helpless and unfinished as a person can be, and the love I felt for him was the strongest thing I had ever known. It was exactly the same a few years later when Jesse arrived (except happily we could hold him straightaway!)

That love was not a response to anything he had done. There was nothing he had done. It was simply there the moment he existed, whole and total, with no conditions attached to it at all.

This is how God loves you. Not because of anything you have achieved, or proved, or become. Not because you finally got your life in order or made yourself worth the trouble.

He loved you when you were small and helpless and could give Him nothing back, and He loves you exactly the same today.

You do not have to be well to be loved by Him. You do not have to be strong, or impressive, or even awake to it. On the nights you cannot feel Him, He is the One sitting beside you in the dark, keeping watch, while you have no idea He is even there.

This is not a new idea. Long before any of us, through the prophet Jeremiah, God said it to a whole nation sitting in exile. A people who had turned away from Him and lost everything for it, their land, their city, even the temple, certain He had finally walked away for good. Into that wreckage He said:

"Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness."

Everlasting.

A love that was already running before you took your first breath, that did not begin when you became lovable and will not end when you fail. You did not earn your way into it, and you cannot fall out of it.

You are loved. Right now, exactly as you are. Not for what you can give back. Just because you are His.