To Peter: A Letter

I see you. Standing in the darkness of your betrayal. Weeping at what you have done. You did what you vowed never to do. Never did you think you were capable of this. You have failed. You are at the utter end.

You have denied the One Thing that drove you, the thing you said you would give your life for. Turns out your life is more precious to you than you thought. More precious than that One Thing. So precious that you would turn away from what you love most.

Look up. Look at me. I see you. I know you. Remember? I knew you would be sifted and exposed. I prayed that your faith would not fail.

But your faith was in yourself. And this faith must always fail in the end. The faith I have prayed for is the faith that rises from this brokenness.

You have served Me so fervently, so passionately. And each day you have become more satisfied with yourself. Zealot. Servant. Disciple. You truly think you have given all.

But who did you do it for? And why?

Now that you have betrayed everything you thought you were, do you see? Do you understand that it was all for you all along? 

Look at Me. You have denied Me. Rejected Me. And now you think that all is lost. But your life is now beginning, beloved. I am looking at you. And this way that I go? It is for you. I came for you. I have something for you that is far better than anything you could do for yourself. And now you can see it.

Walk in the bitterness of your shame. Step into the fear. Follow your failure straight to the cross and watch my blood flow down.

For you.

This is where faith begins, beloved. When you weep the bitter tears of death, the death that I died. For you. When you run to the tomb and find it empty, when you finger the burial cloth that could not hold back my love. When you touch my hands and my feet, when you see the love that is more than enough for your shame. When you remember how you stretched out your hand and I pulled you from the waves, how I calmed the storm, fed the hungry, made the blind see, raised the dead. They are all you, beloved. I came for you.

 This is the faith that will not fail. The faith that knows your desperate need of me. 

You could not be transformed without first being broken. But now, beloved, now you will really know Me and not just your idea of Me. And now I will strengthen you, and you will strengthen your brothers and sisters.

Don’t you know that when you reject Me, I always turn toward you? Do you not see that I am looking at you, and My look is all love?

Look at Me, and know My love, and know that you can never lose it. All is grace.