Poem: "Known" by Charles K. Robinson

I know you. I created you. I have loved you from your mother's womb.

You have fled, as you know, from my love, but I love you never the less, and not the less, however far you flee. It is I who sustains your very power to flee and I will never, finally, let you go. I accept you as you are.

You are forgiven. I know all your sufferings. I have always known them. Far beyond your understanding, when you suffer, I suffer. I also know all the little tricks by which you try to hide the ugliness you have made of your life, from yourself and others.

But, you are beautiful. You are beautiful because you yourself in the unique person that only you are, reflect already something of the beauty of my holiness in a way which shall never end. You are beautiful also because I and I alone, see the beauty you shall become.

Through the transforming power of my love which is made perfect in weakness, you shall become perfectly beautiful. You shall become perfectly beautiful in a uniquely irreplaceable way, which neither you nor I will work out alone, for we shall work it out together.