" I loved him because I couldn’t help myself. I loved him because the one who commands us to love is the one who also empowers us to love, as there in the wilderness of that dark and terrible time I was, through no doing of my own, empowered to love him at least a little, at least enough to survive. And in the midst of it, these small things happened that were as big as heaven and earth because through them a hope beyond hopelessness happened. “O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and for evermore.”…

The final secret, I think, is this: that the words “You shall love the Lord your God” become in the end less a command than a promise. "

― Frederick Buechner , A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces