Love said to me, “Look up.”

But I shook my head.

Love asked me

why I would not meet her eyes.

I said I was unworthy.

Love asked me what made me so.

And I told Love

all that I had done

and had failed to do.

All I had got wrong,

all I had failed to understand.

How I hated, and resented,

how hard it was for me

to get past my hurts and let go.

I whispered my shame.

And as I did so, my cheeks burned.

And Love lifted my chin

and kissed my cheek,

oh so infinitely tender.

But still I did not dare look up.

So Love kissed my head,

just there, as I was.

And still I would not look up.

Love stroked my hair

and told me that nothing

in all the universe

was more lovable than I was.

Or more worthy and deserving.

The shock of her words

made me lift my head.

To see.

And yet, looking, I saw nothing.

But I felt my cheek wet,

and knew that these were Love’s own tears.

At first I did not understand.

Shame still burned, but

something else burned also.

A different fire, cleansing,

hotter than the shame,

and much deeper, right in the core of me.

And suddenly I perceived,

beyond my shame, a fresher reality.

I no longer was my shame;

rather, I saw my shame.

I was the one watching, experiencing,

knowing, learning, expanding.

And suddenly, where there had been only

me, alone and separate and judging,

there was now a new me,

embracing all in compassion and wisdom.

Including all the doing and the failing,

and the shame.

And I remembered Love,

I could see her face again,

smiling through tears at my remembering.

And I wondered

how I had ever thought

I could not look up.

Or that I was not worthy.

Or undeserving of love.

And I realised that the tears

on my cheeks were not mine only,

but were the tears of thousands,

just as, also, was the shame

and the failure, the pain and the hurt.

I remembered. Oh, I remembered!

And I stood up, in my full power,

human and divine.

And, laughing out loud at it all,

I finally looked up.

 

Relephant read:

I Remember all the Pain.

~

Author: Janny Juddly

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Wikimedia