God Thirsts for Us

On a hot June night last summer, I went to see Wonder Woman at the movies with a friend, expecting a night of epic battles and selfless heroes, peppered with a few laughs along the way. But at the movie’s conclusion I found myself staring with unblinking saucer eyes at the rolling credits, seemingly frozen to my seat. I sat in awe of a truth that had overpowered me during the movie:

Though I don’t deserve it, God’s love for me is so great that He thirsts to come into the daily mess of my life.

 
I know that seems like a pretty big leap for a summertime action flick, so let me tell you how I got there. If you haven’t seen Wonder Woman, the movie is about, well, Wonder Woman, or Diana Prince, a woman raised from her youth on a beautiful paradise island populated solely by women for one purpose: to hone her mental and athletic prowess in order to vanquish evil.
 
When Diana learns of the horrors that World War I wages on the outside world, she leaves her sheltered island to help in the fight. She expects that good and evil will be pretty clear cut, facilitating evil’s elimination. But she quickly learns that her quest is not so simple, and that people are capable of both good and evil. I won’t spoil the movie’s ending, but during the final battle, Ares, the god of war and the movie’s villain, taunts Diana for her desire to save a populace of flawed, broken, sinful people, claiming that such people do not deserve her aid. But to this claim, Diana replies: “It’s not about what you deserve; it’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.”
 
Cue my wide-eyed frozen state at the movie’s conclusion. I realized that these words are truer of God’s love for me than they are of even the most selfless comic book superhero’s courageous deeds. God’s love searches me out and comes for me, not because I have deserved or earned it; I have not and never could. He comes for me just because I am, just because I exist. He comes for me because I am His.

He comes for me because His love and mercy run deeper than my sins of darkest scarlet.

 
Living in this truth transforms my everyday life because I invite Him into even its smallest crevices. I invite Him to wait through endless red lights with me, while rain spits on my windshield; to Sunday Mass and brunch with friends; and to budgeting for student loan payments. I invite Him into the daily struggles and joys, the unanswered questions, the closed doors, and the open ones. I don’t deserve for Him to be there, but there He desires to be. He thirsts to come into my everyday, but will only do so if I invite Him in.
 
When I believe in this love that I know God has for me, a quiet joy pervades my life. It’s the joy of knowing that no matter my life’s circumstances, I am not alone, forsaken, or forgotten. St. Thérèse of Lisieux said: “I am not always faithful, but I never get discouraged. I abandon myself again into the arms of Jesus and there, find all that I have lost and much more besides.” When I believe in this love, I know who I am because I know Whose I am. And there, in His arms, I want for nothing.