A Love Letter from God

Lying in the ground, a seed asks, Can I really break through the soil?
It is so dark and close in here; is there really sunlight outside?
Can I really push through ground this hard?
So many thoughts go through a seed.
But once it puts down roots and breaks through to the outside,
it finds there is sunlight, and there is rain,
and so much else there to welcome it.
What softens the ground so the shoot can sprout
is prayer.
And to be certain that outside, just as the word says,
there is sunlight, and that you can grow into a great tree,
and with that certainty to put down roots—
this, truly, is faith.
How far have you come?
Do you believe there is sunlight outside, and are you putting down roots?
Or, telling yourself there can be no bright place,
blaming your circumstances, your timing, and your surroundings,
are you still lying whole in your husk, not giving yourself up to decay?
My beloved,
I love you.
When I tell you to read the word a great deal,
and when I tell you to pray,
it is because this is how you can grow.
Once you have broken through the ground, should you not straighten your back?
Once you have broken through, should you not grow
into a tree where the birds come to nest?
I will put down the roots and make you grow great;
all you need is to trust me and decide.
People say things like this:
I have no future at all.
I have no hope whatsoever.
Could that really happen to me?
But once you put down roots, you will realize then
that it surely does happen.
It happens to those who believe and pray;
to those who doubt, nothing at all will happen.
And those full of doubt say this too:
See? Didn’t I tell you so?
Because of their own words, they will die just as they are.
My beloved,
have you not come this far?
Then do you not also know that I love you?
Can you take heart and do it?
Then get up,
and let us go.
You have come this far; why could you not go farther?
Just as Noah’s household of eight became the peoples of today,
what looks so little in your eyes now
is, in mine, a vast number of saved souls.
My beloved,
let us get up.
You can do it.
I will surely show you the sun.
When people sit in that tree, they will say,
Who planted this tree?
How long has this tree been here?
For now you think yourself of no account,
but when you call out my name without fear,
do not forget that I am always there with you in the midst of it.
I chose you
not because I thought you would do outstandingly well,
nor because you have great knowledge;
it is because you are so weak,
so very weak, and yet in that weakness
you love me so dearly, that I called you.
You can show others who I am, can’t you?
You can tell them about me well, can’t you?
I love you, and love you again,
and I will love you forever.