You Can Come As You Are

Maybe you opened this book without quite knowing what you're looking for — you just know it hurts. Before any pretty words, hear this truth: you don't have to be okay to draw near to God. He doesn't wait for you to pull yourself together before He starts caring. It's precisely when your heart is in pieces that He comes closest. The world tends to pull away from someone else's pain; God does the opposite — He draws near to it. Wherever there is a broken heart, He is already there, kneeling beside it, in no hurry to fix you and not ashamed of your tears. Today you don't need to understand what you feel, or explain it, or pretend. You only need to know that you are not alone in this room, on this night, in this tightness in your chest. Come as you are. He has already arrived first.