When we first enter the world, we don’t come with baggage. We don’t arrive with conditions or scorecards. We don’t withhold affection based on status, background, performance, or past mistakes. We arrive—helpless, open, and wired to love and to be loved.
Have you ever noticed how a baby reaches out to anyone willing to hold them with warmth? How a toddler will wrap their arms around a stranger’s leg just because they remind them of someone safe? There is no evaluation, no judgment. Just pure connection. That’s our truest design.
Somewhere along the way, things start to shift.
We’re taught to measure. We’re told that love must be earned—through achievement, appearance, behavior, belief. We’re warned to protect ourselves, to keep emotional ledgers, to withhold forgiveness until it’s “deserved.” But this isn’t who we were meant to be. It’s who we were conditioned to become.
At our core, beneath the fear and the bruises of experience, we are still those wide-eyed beings. We are still built for unconditional love.
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Unconditional love isn’t weakness. It’s courage.
Loving without conditions doesn’t mean accepting harm or enabling abuse—it means choosing compassion over contempt, understanding over judgment, mercy over revenge. It’s not about ignoring boundaries; it’s about refusing to let the world’s cynicism corrupt the softness with which we were born.
Unconditional love starts with how we see ourselves. If we can remember that we were born worthy—before we ever accomplished or earned a thing—we can begin to offer others that same grace. We can look past the masks and missteps and see the sacred in each other again.
And this isn’t just idealism—it’s biblical.
“We love because He first loved us.” — 1 John 4:19 (NIV)
We were not the initiators of love—we are the recipients. And the love we’ve received from God isn’t based on our perfection. It’s based on His nature.
So, we extend love not because people always deserve it, but because God loved us when we didn’t. That is the heart of grace. That is the source of unconditional love.
Because conditional love is transactional. Unconditional love is transformational.
It heals. It restores. It builds bridges where others see only walls. And in a world more fractured than ever, that kind of love isn’t just a nice idea—it’s a radical, necessary force.
Maybe this is what the world needs now—not louder opinions or bigger platforms—but gentler hearts. Hearts that dare to love first. Hearts that remember who we really are underneath the armor.
Because in the end, we weren’t born to be critics or judges. We were born to love.
And the purest kind of love is the kind that never asks, “What do you deserve?” but instead whispers, “You are enough.”
Patrick Carden
I'm A Gracist 
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