Unconditional

Love looks like something. God sent his Son because He loved us, He loved me. He knew that I would mess up, he knew that I would hurt myself, he knew I would hurt other people, he knew that I would create messes that I wouldn't be able to get myself out of or clean up on my own. He knew, He knew it all and still He loved and loves me. He doesn't love me because I loved him, He just loves. He is love. That's who he is and it's what He does. He sent His son to pay a price. Because I'm his; I'm his daughter, I'm his chosen, His beloved. I don't think I'm a princess because I'm shallow or conceited, or even because I fell in love with a prince. I claim being a princess because my father is the King of all kings and HE says I'm royalty, he says that I was WORTH IT ALL. He did absolutely everything for me, and for you. He gave up everything, he gave up his one and only, beloved son so that I could live. He wanted me, He didn't need me He wanted me. And even when I still make mistakes, even when I still didn't listen, or look his way, or answer him, he remained patient. He still loved me. He never left. He never abandoned me. He has and never will forsake me. He is patient.
If that's his character, and he lives inside of me. I want to love just like that. Unconditionally, holding nothing back--fierce and fearless. Because if I'm worth it, if I was forgiven, if I was redeemed-- everyone in my life, everyone that I meet deserves that same unconditional love. 
Conditional means: "subject to one or more conditions or requirements being met; made or granted on certain terms." 
Which means if I stop fulfilling a requirement that love gets taken away, it means that when I mess up that love is no longer mine. But guess what, His love is so great, so high, so deep, so wide-- it covers all of my sin as if it never existed. 
Psalm 103:12 "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Not meaning that it didn't hurt him, but it means that it's over and He no longer looks at them, He covered them by the blood. He said it is finished. 
I've been faced with situations and messes that weren't mine, but people that I love with my whole heart, and their mess affects me, and it hurts me, but that doesn't mean for a second that I want to pull away and shut them out. Because doing that would mean that I'm conditionally loving them, that as soon as they do something wrong I'm out. If I was to live like that, afraid of other people's mistakes I would be living a very lonely life. And that's not how it's supposed to be at all. God's not afraid of my messes, and I'm not afraid of the messes that the ones that I love have made and gotten themselves into. 
God loves us so much that He comes down and meets us where we're at, but He also loves us so much that He doesn't leave us there, He brings us higher. He brings us out of all the mess, He makes us clean again, and brand new--shining. I am a really big fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis books and there is a part in the Lion, the witch, and the wardrobe that literally kills me every time I watch the movie. It's after they save Edmund and Aslan is finished talking to him and Edmund goes to see his family for the first time and Aslan says: "Do not talk to Edmund of what is past. What's done is done." He says this because no matter what he did, that isn't who Edmund is. Edmund is their brother. And they love him: unconditionally. So instead of speaking, they embrace him. I don't ever want to look at someone and hold their mistakes or anything in their past that makes them look like they are less than the amazing man or woman of God that they really are. Instead, I choose to love unconditionally and open my arms wide to embrace them. Because that's the way it looks in the kingdom, that's the way my father loves.