2023 Poetry Contest: Third Place

What Kind of Love

 If it wasn’t for You, who was it for:

The welcome and the open door?

What do You gain by the gift You give?

No—it is I who by it live.

You don’t need my salvation, no,

And yet You give it even so.

There is no benefit for You;

You do not need saving too.

What kind of love is this to choose

To save something You would not lose?

What kind of love to set apart

A people, just to save their hearts?

To set apart the way they live

By each commandment that You give.

To keep holding when they fall

To those who should not count at all.

What kind of grace is this to stand

Alone, apart, yet to command

A law that makes a people Yours,

As if they are worth fighting for?

What kind of love? What kind of grace?

To give the wanderers a place.

That You would leave Your kingly throne

To take this people as Your own.

No words could ever be enough

To thank You for this reckless love.

No action, though from heart and soul

Could repay this hope in full.

But to show it to the nations

Genesis to Revelations,

In every moment that they live:

The proof of faith in what You give. 

By: Ava C., Third Place in the 2023 Poetry Contest

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