Reversal

Recently, I sat with something in the that I don’t think I’ve ever quite let myself receive before — the idea that I am not loved because I am worthy, but that I am worthy because I am loved. The order is reversed from everything I have lived by, and somewhere in the quiet I heard the weight of what that reversal has cost me. I have spent so much of my life building and proving, laying brick after brick as if I could construct something solid enough to finally deserve to be here, to be cared for, to belong. But the foundation was always sand, and I think part of me has always known it.

The image of the father running — not waiting, not requiring an explanation first, not standing at the door with arms crossed — broke something open in me this morning. He ran while the son was still far off. Still dirty, still rehearsing his apology, still uncertain of his welcome. And none of that mattered to the father. The running happened before any proof was offered. That is not a small detail. That is the entire point, and I want to let it be the entire point of my life going forward.

I want to start living from that place — from love as the beginning rather than love as the prize at the end of enough effort. I know it will take time to unlearn the backwards order. It is deep in me. But something shifted today, even if only slightly, and I want to remember this feeling — the strange, almost terrifying relief of being told I don’t have to earn what I already have.