I am deeply convicted that God’s heart for us is and always has been to live with us. God made us for and out of joy. As my best friend Nora said the day my daughter was baptized: being naked in the Garden was the original plan. This is a key that unlocks so much bad theology, but even more important, knowing that God made us for joy unclenches the chokehold that cynicism and despair have on us.
If God made us – all of us, with tummies and wrinkles and libido and hearts that break and burst with life – for joy, then imagine how joyful life with God could be. If we fully accept this godly delight, who might we become? Who are we already if we let ourselves meet ourselves without malice or intent to harm? What freedom is already here? And what might be even more beautiful than it already is?
— Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, p. xv
Photo: Water lily from Monet’s Garden, France, June 22, 2026