Mea Culpa

I don’t stand here as a man who has mastered love. I stand here as a man who is starving for it.

I don’t always feel saved by love. More often than not, I feel crushed by loneliness, consumed by shame, and trapped in a body that feels like too much to bear. Sometimes I dream of nothing more than relief — of leaving this body and floating outside of myself, so I no longer have to feel this ache anymore.

So why do I dare speak of love at all?

Because even in my emptiness, I know this much is true: love is the only force in the universe that creates instead of destroys. Every other power — anger, pride, greed, despair — unravels. Love alone binds. Love alone builds. Love alone rescues what should have been lost.

I haven’t reached it yet, I haven’t perfected itz and I fail at it daily. But I believe it’s real — more real than my failures, more real than my shame, more real than the pain that makes me want to disappear.

So understand this: I don’t preach from the finish line. I crawl from the starting line, bloodied and broken, pointing toward the horizon I haven’t reached yet.

I say Love Saves not because I feel loved or saved every day, but because I believe that if anything will save me, if anything will save us, it is love. And so I stake my life on it.

I am not the hero of this story. I am the beggar at the gate. I am the man crying out, “God, if You are love, then save me by it — because nothing else can.”

And if you feel unworthy, or empty, or like you’ve failed too many times, then maybe you’ll understand why I cling to this so desperately. Love saves — even if I don’t yet know how. Love saves — even if I can’t always feel it. Love saves — because without it, none of us would survive.