Lord,

I treasure those moments when I am alone with you and your presence embraces me like the arms of a loving father who embraces his little girl when she is afraid or sad. These solitary moments mean the world to me. When I'm with you, the solid brick walls I have built around my heart come down like dry sand and I can be myself, feeling confident that I am still loved despite my flaws and failures - you even love me for my flaws and failures. I will never fully understand that love you have for mankind, which moved you to become one of us in order to take up our sins and die in our place so that we could live, but I am so grateful for the sacrifice you made. I love you with every fibre of my being, you are the fullness of my joy that makes everything else worthwhile. I would never want to go back to the days when I believed I could live without you, because then I wasn't even really living. You have brought profound joy to my life, you poured it over me like water, and your peace like oil. You nourish my hope and make it bloom as if it were perpetual spring. I don't have much to give in return, but you have my esteem and my obedience. I want to humble myelf before you every single day so that my heart becomes a pure and sacred place where you love to live. This is my only wish, that you may use me for your purpose and your success, not mine.

He must increase, but I must decrease. - John 3:30