That's What He Said

When I was young, I told myself, "You are beautiful and brilliant and amazing! Everyone will love you." But then I grew a little, and I found out that I wasn't, really ...

So when God told me, years later,
You are beautiful, my love -- there is no flaw in you,
I loved his words, but I was so frightened.

I said, "Lord, please make me beautiful. I am selfish, I am not just, I am not kind. All I want is to live a pure life. Surely that pleases you."

But still He said,
None is righteous -- no, not even you, little one.

So I said, "If I cannot be good, then let me at least be brilliant. Let me make some thing beautiful, to justify my existence here. Some word or song or image that will remain, that people will look at for years. Some thing that will make them cry for its beauty, so that if they cannot love me, they will at least love what I have made."

And He said,
Your flesh is grass, and all your beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely, you are grass. Only my Word remains forever.

And I said, "Yes, yes, Lord, but what can I do?"

He said,
Look -- here is my Son. In Him I am well pleased forever.

And oh, that Son! He was beautiful and terrible. He was like a pearl in his radiance; his great love pressed against me. You are altogether lovely, he told me again.
I felt like the world dropped from beneath my feet -- my stomach lurched with a sick, inevitable dread.
So I built a wall around myself with mirrors, so that all I could see wherever I looked was my own image. And I said, "I am not worthy of love, but I will become a tower. I have no breasts -- no doors. I shield myself with silver. I am all there is in my world, and I reject myself. Surely, now, I have nothing to fear."

But he said (and his voice was terrible)
I shatter doors of bronze; I break through walls of iron. You are mine, little one. No one shall deliver you out of my hand.

And I said, "No one?"

And He said,
Not even you, my hard proud little one.
He was so beautiful it hurt to look at him, but his eyes were so kind. He looked at me -- he saw me. He saw me, and he said again,

I will never leave you or forsake you.

He had been saying it all along.