“If you could ask God one question, what would it be?”
That was the bumper sticker on the car next to me. Oh my God. There are so many things that need answers. Why do you allow suffering? Why, death? Why, child abuse? Why, domestic violence and kidnapping and racial strife and executions? Why, pain and cancer and illness? Why, loneliness and despair and hopelessness? Why, oh God, why?
But all those questions came with follow-on questions. If I knew the answer to that, then I would need to know this…. The offer was one; I had to edit all my angst down to one measly question.
“Why do you love me?”
You know me completely. All my faults, failures, misgivings and mistakes. You know all I’ve done and all I’ve failed to do. You know my intentions, my obligations and my shortcomings. In spite of it all, you love me. Why?
And in that moment, there were no more questions. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God did love me. And if God could love me, God could love the rest of these. Every last one. There were no more “why’s,” only, perhaps, how’s.
Such is the nature of Love. This I know.