Late have I loved You:

I've always been the kind of person to love intensely. There's never been a middle ground for me, either I love you to death or I wouldn't care if you left my life this very moment and walked away. Over the years my ability to express love has diminished but the love in my heart never did.

Saying I love you does not come easy to me. It's the hardest thing to admit to another, to make yourself vulnerable first, to give someone else the power of knowing that you care. It's hard to put yourself out there without getting any confirmation that they love you in return.

One night as I was lying in bed God asked me just as he asked Peter - Do you love me? I replied with my usual God you know that I can't say I love you easily but its there from my heart but He persisted. And I thought about it. Do I love Him?

People say that when you love someone you don't really need to think about it, that the response will leap to your lips the minute you've been asked because you are so sure, so confident, there remains no doubt that you care. But it took me a while as I pondered. Always a pessimist, I calculated the risks of admitting to someone that I love them.

And then I realized that there was no risk. That God had removed the risk by admitting that He loved me first, that He made himself vulnerable first, and He had already revealed just how desperately He wanted me.

And I was the one hesitating. Like oxygen God was always there, reliable, necessary to sustain life. And sometimes I forgot He was around but its only when you're without oxygen that you realize just how badly you need it to survive. Life without God was unimaginable, the world seemed to lose its color, He was always so dependably, so reliably perpetually there that I had started taking him for granted. And till He asked me I was unable to tell Him that I loved Him.

I realized in that moment just how much I needed Him, just how much I depended on Him, just how much I love Him. Late have I loved you Lord.

St Augustine puts this beautifully in his confessions. His words to God are like a love letter and perfectly describes the hunger for God.

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved You. And see, You were within and I was in the external world and sought You there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which You made. You were with me, and I was not with You. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, You put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after You. I tasted You, and I feel but hunger and thirst for You. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is Yours."

I love you Lord.