The Mercy That Was Never Mine to Give
A personal essay by someone learning that love doesn’t pick favorites, even when I secretly wanted it to.
When I was in first grade, I got into a fight with a friend. And I did what any kid does, I went home and told on her, spilled all the parts that made me look good. “She did this. She said that.” My family took it seriously. They came to the school, sat down with her, talked it through. I thought they’d be on my side, you know? I thought that’s what people who love you do, they fight for you. But instead, they came back to me and said, “Ruth, this part was your fault. You have to fix it.” I think that was the first time I realized I wasn’t always right. That just because someone hurt me didn’t mean they were the villain. But growing up? I forgot. Or maybe I didn’t forget, but life moved on, and like most hard won lessons from childhood, that truth got buried under years of adult disappointment and the ache of wanting someone… anyone… to take my side.
It’s strange how long I thought God was supposed to be for me. Not just in a spiritual sense, but in a tribal one. Like, if I was crying, He’d be outraged. If someone wronged me, He’d be sharpening lightning bolts. I imagined heaven as my personal support system, emotionally invested in my story arc. That’s what I thought love meant backing me up no matter what, picking my side like a loyal friend who shows up to every fight, arms crossed, glaring at whoever dared to hurt me.
And maybe, back then, that’s what I needed. Not theology, not nuance just someone to say, “You’re okay. You’re not crazy. I see what you’re going through.” Maybe I needed the version of God who booed my enemies and whispered, “They don’t deserve you.”
But somewhere along the way, that version of God stopped showing up.
Or maybe, I just started seeing Him more clearly.
Lord,
You know what I’ve come from. You know the private aches, the late-night monologues, the whispered “why’s.” And You also know how badly I wanted You to pick me, not just in salvation (I never doubted that), but in conflict. I wanted You to take my side in the courtroom of life. To stand behind me and say, “She’s the one who’s right.” You know I’m the kind of person who keeps score. I draw lines, sharp and fast this is mine, that is yours. I draw them in politics, in culture, in family. I’ve drawn them in my friendships too, drawing circles around “my people” Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was control. Maybe I needed to feel protected. Maybe the idea of You being on everyone’s side made me feel unsafe. Because if You’re for them too… then where’s my comfort? Where’s my justice?
But You don’t seem very interested in sides.
You don’t root for me against someone else. You love us both. And that wrecked me, honestly. It still does. Because there are people who’ve hurt me, some who never apologized, some who probably don’t even remember. And I kept waiting for justice, waiting for vindication. I kept imagining a holy scoreboard where my faithfulness would win me favor points.
But You don’t operate like that.
You don’t keep score. You don’t love by comparison.
There’s this quiet shift that happens when you realize God’s mercy includes people you secretly hoped He’d exclude. That He shows up with the same gentleness for the ones you struggle to forgive. And no matter how much I protest “But they don’t deserve it, Lord! Look what they did!” He isn’t moved by the politics of hurt. He is moved by love.
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable
because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
C.S. Lewis
Lord,
Honestly? That ache followed me into how I see You.You know how I keep trying to make You choose. I tell You what they did. I lay down my case. I highlight their wrongs. I hope You’ll take my pain as proof that I deserve the mercy, the attention, the vindication. But You don’t play like that. You never have. You didn’t come to take sides, you came to love. And Your love… well, it messes me up.
Because Your love isn’t a courtroom. It’s a cross.
And on that cross, You didn’t shout, “Here’s who’s wrong!” You said, “Forgive them.” You didn’t point fingers. You stretched out arms.
That kind of love doesn’t feel safe to me sometimes. Because I draw lines. I always have. I’ve even called them “boundaries,” when really… they were walls. Maybe I just needed to feel like I had somewhere to belong. That I had a team. That if the world was cruel, You’d still have my back. That You’d whisper, “You’re the one I choose.”
But Christ love doesn’t play by those rules. It doesn’t build fences. It tears them down. The longer I sit with Him, the more I see: He don’t pick favorites. He pick everyone. Even the people who broke me. Even the ones I swore I’d never sit beside again. And maybe just maybe, that’s what love looks like when it stops being about comfort and starts becoming Christ.
So here I am, Lord. Trying to unlearn all the lines I drew in Your name. Trying to see people the way You do, not as enemies, not as opponents, not as projects or threats but as people You died for. People You love.
Help me, Father. I don’t want to be the one holding the measuring cup of mercy, dishing it out like I own it. I want to be flooded by it. Changed by it. Able to offer it even when it costs me my pride. Even when I’d rather just be right.
Because the truth is… I’ve hurt People with my pride, or with silence, or with sharp words. Some of them pleaded with me, maybe not out loud, but in ways their faces changed, their eyes shifted, the way they distanced themselves. And it wrecked me. Because I saw it: I’m not always the one needing defending. Sometimes, I’m the one others need protection from. Yet somehow, even then, You came for me. And if You can love me in that, maybe You can help me love others in this.
Maybe mercy isn’t mine to give or withhold. Maybe it’s just mine to witness; in awe, in humility, in surrender.
There is no hierarchy in mercy. There’s just Christ, reaching across every divide we made. And there’s me, standing on the same ground as the ones I once deemed unforgivable.
I want to be like You, Jesus. But I don’t know how to love like that without feeling like I’m betraying myself (but dying for self is the whole point, isn’t it?). I still flinch when I see people I swore I’d never forgive. I still grit my teeth when I hear their names. But Lord, You love them. You wept for them. You stretched out Your arms on the cross for them, too. Not just for the ones who got it right. But for all of us who never did.
So I let go.
Not perfectly. Not all at once. But with every breath, I loosen my grip. I learn to see people not by what they’ve done to me, but by how much they’re loved by You.
You’re not asking me to be right, Lord. You’re asking me to love.
And with You, that’s possible.
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:44–45 (KJV)
“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”
Romans 12:18–20 (KJV)
.For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.
Romans 15:3 (KJV)
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. If you’re incase wondering, I’ll be over here trying not to keep score, trying to love people without adding footnotes, and maybe… maybe not flinching when I see that one person in the elevator.
Be kind. Be soft. Don’t build fences. And if you must draw a line, let it be a heart around someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Now go out there and confuse the world with unreasonable mercy.
Catch you later, Friends :)