Some of us grew up learning that love comes with strings, expectations, pressure, or pain. For years, I believed God’s love worked the same way. I thought I had to earn it, prove myself, behave perfectly, or somehow demonstrate that I was worth loving.

But this week’s Scriptures gently unravel that lie.

They remind us that love begins with God, not with us.
We love because He first loved us.
We receive because He first gave.
We hope because He is our portion.

I didn’t understand unconditional love until someone showed it to me …

In a way that didn’t demand anything back. And even then, I didn’t know how to let myself receive it. But God kept meeting me in the middle of my fear, confusion, and doubt, not with shame, but with presence.

Love, real love, is not something you perform.

It’s something you’re invited into.
Something you notice slowly, sometimes cautiously.
Something that changes the way you see yourself and the world around you.

If love feels complicated for you, I get it.
If receiving love feels harder than giving it, I get that too.
But I want to gently remind you of something true:
You are loved already — not because of what you’ve done, but because of who God is.

May this week soften a few edges, open a small window of hope, and help you recognize the kind of love that doesn’t disappear when life gets messy.

Stay Connected

If you’d like to keep walking with me through updates, new tools, and reflections, and have access to a downloadable worksheet for each week’s Advent Theme, you can join my list here.

Pray • Share • Give

If this reflection encouraged you, would you take a moment to:
– Pray — that Faith in the Fog finds its way into the hands of those who need its message of hope and healing and that I listen to God’s voice in all that I do.
– Share — this post with someone who might need the reminder that they’re not walking alone.
– Give — if you’d like to help make it possible for Faith in the Fog to reach those who need help navigating the fog of healing, you can do that here.