I mean it when I say ...

And I ain't kidding!

So there! I really do mean it when I say "God bless the whole world, no exceptions." At least I try to mean it. Even though I say it and most people who know me well identify me with this statement, I have to work at it. As a Christian, I was taught “for God so loved the world …” and didn’t that include everybody? But, then I’d read about God destroying this person or that place and it was either be confused (which I was as a child) or else believe that God loves some of us and not others (not acceptable to my child's mind).
     Or, I had to believe that people did things that made them unloveable—like sinning. Oh, it didn’t have to be a really bad sin, like killing your brother. But even in that story, God didn’t kill Cain for killing Abel and supposedly didn’t allow anyone else to do kill him either. Yet there was that time he destroyed a couple of cities and turned a lady into a pillar of salt. Oh, and worse, flooded the whole earth killing whole bunches of people. Makes you wonder. Makes me wonder anyway. So, why have I taken up the mantra for God to bless the whole world with no exceptions? Maybe I’m standing up to God. That’s a good one.
     “God,” I say. “You need to bless everyone because otherwise some people are going to think you love them more than other people.” I’m not polite about it either. My friends at the World Peace Prayer Society say the simple prayer of “May Peace Prevail on Earth.” It's a statement that resonates for millions of people and it is powerful. I like it. A lot. But me—I’m going straight to the source and taking God on.
     “Look, God," I say. "I’m not begging or asking. I’m demanding that you bless all of us or none of us. Got it?” And you know what God says to me? Well, what I feel that God is saying to me? It goes something like this.
     "You want to take me on, Perri?" God calls me by my given name, by the way.
     "Yes."
     "You sure?"
     "Yes."
     There's a little thunder and lightening for effect, but I can hear something in that rumble that belongs to God and I am not afraid. You see ... it was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears released, so I stand up to God and say.
     "I'm serious, God." And I wait.
     And then God smiles at me, a smile that touches me from my head to my toes and lives right here in my heart, and says ...
     "So be it." And God does.
     Feel it? I do.