You Still

You still loved me although we have never met for a second in this world.

I went on with my disguised happy days without the joy of knowing you. You still loved me.

I walked with multiple lovers,

Mary Jane, Captain Morgan, and others

You stood from afar and You still loved me.

At the flicker of a flame that illuminated failure

within the cloud of disaster,

You still gave me hope when it separated into particles of just air. Unsanitized hands, death leaking from my lips, eyes fluttering with lust, You still held my hands, You still kissed my lifeless curves, and brushed Your fingers across my lashes;

You still wanted me.

When no one else really wanted me,

You still wanted me.

I still did not know You.

Year after year, seventeen should one count

I walked aimlessly, beating the air, without any sense of love – no sense of You.

But year eighteen would be the year I would meet my first love. No intentions on running into Your long extended arms, stretched out from east to west, bruised with life –

but not Yours.

Still, they were perfect.

And that is when it all happened.

Entering doors I rarely saw the inside of,

I have never seen You,

but I could not deny your presence surrounding me.

An empty but fulfilling air that found its way

into my body, but never left.

Like that sweet aroma of a man that lingers

even after he’s gone – he’s still there.

“Hello my beautiful wife,” You whispered,

“I still know your story, let me tell you mine.”

I listened closely, my heart linked with His

instantly.

I love You.

And in that moment I knew it all.

The scars of love on His hands, on His back, on His head, on His heart, His feet – He still walks.

You are strong, and for that

I am still strong.

His many attempts to find another to love Him back

only brought stones of hatred, words of death

that would send him to the grave.

He still walks.

All actions I unknowingly supported,

and yet, You still love me.

You still love them.

“Aunque me cuesta la vida” – even if it cost me my life.

The kind of love worth dying for.

That all-consuming, abundant, exceeding love that spills over a million times more. And then some.

Love unbought, unhidden, like the warmth of a fire

after a rough wintered life.

You are the fire that warms me every night in a bed once empty,

either side the cold side –

now the warm side that wraps in and out of my body,

in between my toes, my legs, around my imperfect curves

scarred with motherhood, underneath my once youthful breasts –

imperfection that I still reject

but You still accept.

You are always there because You never leave.

You love me way too much to ever drift away,

despite my many attempts to point out my unworthiness.

You still remain.

I need You more than I can fathom,

like those last seconds underwater just before you run out of air and race to the top for any O2 particle to touch your blued lips. I still need.

You say I can ask for whatever and You will provide –

all it takes is a whisper of Your name.

Patience, Kindness, Forgiveness, Faithfulness, Peace,

Hope – all these define You.

But the greatest of these, You are...

Love.

I did not choose You, You chose me,

and laid down Your life so that I may live.

No greater love exists.

I still call You friend, lover, husband.

Your presence forever embraces me,

and Your words, Your love, I have hidden in my heart so that I may always dwell on the everlasting joy

of saying “I [still] do.”

I love you, Jesus.

Ishanna|My Word of Love