Be Mine (Ash and All)

This is the Valentines no one can give you.

Any real relationship between us has to have honesty, a willingness to look at the hard stuff that gets in the way of love (the kind you're made for). Anyone who comes along saying they "accept you for who you are" by ignoring your faults is into cheap love and, ultimately, is just using you.

Why is it so hard to "be real," why work to put on a good show, why does it mean so much to look right for one you care about?

This trap of perfection -craving the appearance of "looking good" while wanting to be accepted "as is," as broken- is the tension of every life, and the unsettled shifting from one side to the other - "looking good," to "being real"- is as inescapable as your skin.

To the man in prison what good is a paper heart? He wants a letter of pardon! But what good is pardon with no love to meet you on the other side?

God is the epitome of looking good, he put that craving for Good in you! Who is alive and active and doesn't settle for anything less than beautified love!?

Who put on sin, human skin, doomed for ashes in your trap, "he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the Good-lookingness of God."

Sin is an ugly word. You don't want to talk about the ugliness anymore, but a real relationship gives you that freedom.

Passionate, wholehearted, this Valentines didn't come as a card, it comes embodied: Jesus. Who calls you saying, "Be Mine! Now is the acceptable time; now is the day to be set free," not into emptiness - not a paper heart - but a purified heart that you give in him, through him, from him.