My Lament Beneath “Love Wins”

a confession in the key of trembling.

Aug 19, 2025

Recap:
When last we chatted I shared: Love wins not by violent domination, but by resurrection - again and again and again - in ten million small places and in 10 million small ways, until evil finally collapses, exhausted. And it serves as my muse again this week.

I speak a lot about Love — maybe too much — and I worry it can sound like love comes easily to me. The truth is, it doesn’t. Far from it. And if I’m honest, there are days when I wonder if the folks who think I’m full of $&it might be closer to the mark.

Like many of you, I feel worn down at times by the relentless tide of grief, cruelty, and suffering that seems especially prickley these days. I bristle at the bullies who delight in their nastiness and are even celebrated for it. So yes, I often live in that uneasy tension where love collides with fear and anger. Scripture says “perfect love casts out fear,” well friends, for me, anxiety still lurks nearby, like a half-starved stray cat that refuses to leave my doorstep.

That’s why I have to keep reminding myself: love is a choice. Each morning, I need to choose it again — choose love when I’m anxious, when I’m furious, when I feel completely lost. Love is grace, yes, but it’s also a practice, a habit, a muscle that only gets stronger with use. Pettiness, I confess, comes far more naturally to me.

What follows is part confession, part lament, and part longing. It’s a sketch in words from that raw space between all the little deaths we experience and the small, stubborn resurrections of trying once more.

My Lament Beneath “Love Wins”
a confession in the key of trembling

Yes,
I’ve said it (and said it and said it and said it)
Love wins.

I’ve preached love
like it’s a song tattoo’d on my lips,
like I believe it
with my whole wide-open soul.

But God,
In my darker moments. More often, it seems
I am afraid.

Afraid it’s all just
wishful, though lovely, thinking
a lullaby sung
to keep the anxious thoughts at bay.

I’ve seen too many graves.
Laid down too many hopes.
I’ve watched good people
bleed out slowly
on altars made of promises
that are still yet to be.

And me?
I am tired of losing.
Tired of calling it sacrifice
when it mostly just feels like being left behind.
Tired of love demanding more
than I wonder if it’s sane to give.

Truth is (sigh)
I’m not so sure I trust it.
Not all the way.
Not when it asks me
to let go
again
and again
and again
with no guarantee
except that maybe,
somehow,
Love rises.

I want to believe.
I really do.

I cling to my pseudo certainty
like a life jacket on a man overboard.
I white-knuckle playing it safe
as if it were salvation itself.
I calculate the risk (calculate, calculate, calcu…)
before I open my hands.
I hes i tate.

And still,
part of me
aches toward the hope
that somewhere
beneath the fear,
there’s a seed of that kiss
not dead yet.
Just buried.

So, I offer you this battered cup
of belief and unbelief,
faith and fear
with its dregs of wine and ash.

If there is resurrection,
then resurrect me too
not with fanfare,
but in quiet mercy.

Teach me the slow courage
of small surrenders.
Stir in me the Love
I can lean on,
not just write about.

Rise again in me
in this doubting,
anxious,
but want-to-be open heart.

Amen.

_______

Sola Caritas,

𝞃Michael

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