Easter is my love story

 People think of Valentine’s Day as the celebration of love. 

But for me, it has recently become Easter.
Because when I look back on my life, I see a long, aching search for love.

As a child, I wanted to be seen, chosen, delighted in.
I came into the world with intense emotions, but instead of being affirmed, I was often chided. I learned early that the way I felt—deeply, vividly—was too much.

So I went looking for love.

In attention.
In being beautiful and smart.

But what I found there was surface validation; something that looked like love, but never held me.

I tried to be clever.
To work hard.
To excel at something—anything—that would make me unforgettable.

I wanted someone to see my value.

I built a life I could be proud of.
I shaped myself around what was needed, trying to make myself valuable wherever I was placed.
I told myself I asked for very little.

I gave so much, hoping it would finally be enough.

But all these attempts at love left me empty.

Because I am flawed.
And the people around me are flawed.

And so I moved through life with this quiet, persistent ache:
Never fully chosen.
Never quite worth someone’s sacrifice.
Never entirely safe in love.

I have been told I am “a lot.”
That I am intense.
That I am a challenge.
That I am hard to love.

Even now, I am beginning to understand that the intensity I’ve carried may have a name—something like ADHD—but also a sensitivity that has always made me feel deeply.

I don’t just feel things; I experience them.
They pierce me, sometimes all the way into my body.

As a child, I would sob uncontrollably after hearing the song “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.”
I couldn’t have been more than seven.
But my imagination filled with longing so deep it felt unbearable. In my imagination I saw someone pining for an unreachable loved one and it overwhelmed me.

This has always been my life:
To feel deeply.
To long deeply.

But I could not love deeply because I did not love myself.

Not until I met The Christ.

In these past two years, I have come to know a love so deep it quiets even my deepest ache.

I met a man who was willing to die for me.
I met a man who sits with me at the well when others would say, “stone her.”
A man who stands in my place.

I met a Savior who formed me and called me beautiful—just as I am.
My brown skin.
My fine hair.
My pear-shaped body.

None of it offended Him.

Instead, He tells me I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
That He makes no mistakes. No junk.
That I am easy to love.

He turns over tables for me.

And somehow, it is completely on brand for me that the only love that has ever satisfied me is divine—
a love I cannot see, but deeply feel, and one that sustains me.

He is the only one who has ever been enough.

When I think of Easter, I don’t just see a story.
I see triumph.
I see radical love.
I see a man who chose me fully, sacrificially even when I was still wandering, still stubborn, still searching.

People talk about kintsugi—the Japanese art of filling cracks with gold as redemption.
It’s beautiful.

But for me, my cracks are filled with something even more precious:
His blood.

I am made whole and newly precious because of Him.

My Savior.
My Creator.
My Friend.

He is the president who governs my life, the philosopher who gives meaning to my story, and the poet who gives language to feelings too deep for prose.

And maybe, if you are struggling, if you are searching the way I have searched, 
this is simply where I have found rest.

I don’t offer you religion.
I don’t offer you a system or a denomination.

I offer you Jesus Christ.

Because there is no human being, no institution, no system of approval that can tell you what you are worth.

But He can.

And His love has been, for me, a never-ending tonic

Jesus, thank you for loving me when others could not.

Thank you for never leaving me, even when I forgot You were there.
Thank you for thinking of me when You died.

Because of Your love, I am no longer searching.

I am found.

Happy Easter.