chief among them

An angel hands me a cup and I drink

He tells me it's the wine of God's wrath

It tastes like nothing although my soul knows bitterness

As I lie in bed I retrace my steps, as I have done many times before, looking for a single, solitary moment I could have done something differently to save my life from this.

I don't find it. I never find it. Exhausted and nauseous from replaying the same tragedies in my mind over and over again I fall asleep.

I wake up in the middle of the night to the word "sinners"

And a voice tells me I am chief among them.

 I am strangely at peace with this, 

because I know love

It is not a conditional love that issues a cruel ultimatum 

Insisting "change or die"

Neither does it say, "I love you in spite of your many sins and flaws"

It teaches me who I really am, not who it wants me to be.

What is the provenance of this love?

It comes not from acquaintance, those who know not the dark, secret things of the soul. 

It comes when you know thyself and know what will never change and love what will never change. Love what has been bruised and beaten into you, love what God has forged in the crucible of affliction.

I realize in this love that I was dragged kicking and screaming into the version of me I most want to be.