​Once upon a time, there was a young woman who lived in a town ruled by an evil Sorceress. A disease spread through the town. The people went to the Sorceress to be cured for they did not know that she was the one who had released the disease among them. 

​The young woman was one of the few who had been cured, although not by the power of the Sorceress. Since she was cured, she was no longer quarantined to the town. However, she remained because there was someone still sick with the disease who was dear to her. She did not want to leave without him. 

​The disease had infected the people’s hearts and left their hearts broken. Everyone knew they would be cured if they found true love. But no one knew where to find it. For when they looked up where to go, their heart, which no longer worked right, would calculate the wrong directions.

​Their hearts would direct them to things that were love-like, places that would be useful if they already possessed true love. It was like looking up directions for a place to eat only to get a list of shops to buy silverware, plates, and bowls; all good things if you had food. So their hearts directed them to relationships, careers, hobbies, and marriages instead of directing them to true love itself.

The disease corrupted their hearts so they sought things that were less and less like love. Rather it directed the people to seek what was selfish, the exact opposite of love. This is when the Sorceress became very wealthy selling the people “cures” that, rather than giving them love which would cure them, fed their selfish desires which worsened their disease.

The disease was slow, and the “cures” the Sorceress sold were for superficial pain. When her medicine took away the symptoms of the disease, the people thought she had cured them. They did not realize the infection had not left, and it was still spreading within them. When the symptoms of their disease returned, they again paid her for her “cures”.  

​The town was surrounded by a high wall. This was not the Sorceress’ invention. Although, it had been erected when she came to power and immediately after the disease had first broken out. There was only one door in the wall, one gate which always stood open. A Man stood in the gateway. He called to the people day after day. Some thought He was a guard to keep the people locked up. However, the gate in which He stood was always open behind Him. He called to the people to come to Him to be healed of their disease.

The young woman had talked with the Man at the gateway and walked through the door. No one knew what had happened when she left the town. But when she returned, she claimed she had found the cure everyone was looking for.

​Her friends said to her, “How could you have found true love outside our town? Our hearts have never directed us to look for love outside our walls.”

​But all who had known the young woman before admitted that she had somehow changed for the better.

​      One day the young woman left her house to find the one who was dear to her. As she walked down the street, she saw a girl standing on the corner. The girl was shouting to people as they passed,

​“Look at me! Look at me!”

​The young woman went up to her. 

​“Why do you want people to look at you?” she asked. 

​The girl replied, “If enough people like me, I will be worthy to have what I need most.”

​“What is it you that you need?” the young woman asked. 

​“To be loved,” the girl replied.

​The young woman looked at the girl intently. “I used to search for that too.”

​The girl looked down at the ground. “I’m not ready to give up yet.”

“I didn’t give up. I found it,” the young woman laughed.

​The girl fixed her eyes on her with eager excitement.

​“You see, everyone was created with a need for perfect love. That need only our Creator can fill. But because our hearts were broken, we look for His love in the all wrong places. Where you are looking, you will never find true love only its imitation. But His love is what will heal your heart.”

​The girl’s smile faded. “I think there are other ways to find love that will heal me.”

​“If there are, why are you still looking?” the young woman asked.

​A group of people passed by. The girl left the young woman and ran up to them. 

​“Look at me! Look at me!”

​The young woman sighed and continued down the street. 

     Not long after, the young woman passed by someone else. They were standing with a hood over their head and their face bent down. As she was walking by, she heard them saying,

​“I am worthless. I am unlovable.”

​The young woman turned back.

​“Why do you think you think you cannot be loved?” she asked.

​“Because no matter what I do, I never feel truly loved. Every love I find ends up breaking. It must be because I am unlovable.”

​“The loves you have tried were not true love. That’s why they could not satisfy you,” the young woman said, “But you can have what you need, the real thing.”

“I am not worthy to be loved,” the person said. 

​“No one is,” the young woman replied, “You getting it has nothing to do with whether you deserve it or not.”

​The person looked up at her. “I can have love even though I do not deserve to have it?”

​“Yes,” the young woman said excitedly, “God is the One who will give it to you. It’s His love that you want. All other love is imperfect and won’t last. His is the only real love. And His love is also what will give you worth.”

“I’ve tried God,” the person said. “His judgment makes me feel more worthless.”

“Exactly, His law shows you that you are messed up. You don’t blame the doctor when they tell you you have a disease. You ask them what the cure is. It’s a bad doctor who tells you that you are healthy when you are actually dying. 

“Of course, God’s law doesn’t make you feel better. It makes you feel worse so that you realize you are sick and you go to Him to get cured. It is when you give your life to God that He heals you.”

​The person replied, “I would rather rule a dying body than live in an enslaved one.”

​The young woman was amazed. After a few moments, she answered, 

​“You know I now have to live obedient to what God tells me. But He does not treat me as His slave. He calls me His daughter.”

​The person turned and ignored her, and the young woman walked away sad at their response.

     She walked down a street with buildings covered in bright flashy lights. Passing a large window, the young woman looked inside. She saw the one who was dear to her. He was in a daze, his eyes glazed over. Beside him stood the Sorceress. She was tall and beautiful, dressed seductively. Her bare arms were clasped in golden bracelets. Her neck shimmered with jewels. The man had his head bent towards her, a smile on his face, but his eyes were empty.

​The Sorceress whispered something in his ear and pulled him over to a table. Having him sit down, she took a gold goblet in her hand. She sat down beside him, passed her long slender fingers through his hair, and pressed a kiss to his lips. Then she brought the golden cup up to his mouth. He drank from it. He smiled and laughed unaware that his face had turned ghastly pale.

​Outside in the street, the young woman turned away from the window. She sat with her back against the building. She could not go to him now, not when he was in the midst of one of the Sorceress' spells. Tears rolled down the young woman’s face. But she waited.

In a city by the sea, there lived two sisters. The city was ruled by a duke. Everyone in the city, unbeknownst to them, belonged to the Duke. The sisters lived in his stately residence. Every luxury they desired, he provided. They wore the finest gowns and ate the richest foods. 

One day as the youngest sister was walking through the streets of the city, she saw a young man dressed in poor sailor’s clothes. There was nothing peculiar in his appearance that should have arrested her attention. However as she passed by him, she could not help staring at him.

The next day she saw him again. This time he noticed her stare. She crossed the street and approached him. 
“There is something different about you. Where are you from?” she demanded.
“I come from the capital of our country,” the poor sailor answered with a smile. 
“Why do you look so happy like you possessed all the goods of the world and had every experience worth having?”
“My lady, I have come across the sea, endured storms, skirmishes with pirate ships, and been shipwrecked on your shores,” the sailor replied still smiling.
“How can someone who has been through all that and lost everything be happy?” she asked.
“Come see me tomorrow, and I will tell you,” the sailor replied. 

The following day, the sailor told the younger sister about his country far away. She was confused. His customs sounded completely upside down compared to the Duke’s city.
“Well, you see,” said the young foreigner, “In my country, everything is right side up. It is here in your city where everything is upside down.”
The girl laughed in disbelief. 
“Come back with me, and I will show you,” he said to her.
“I would like to go with you someday,” she replied, “For even though you have nothing, you are as happy as if you possessed everything. I have everything I want, yet I am as empty inside as if I had nothing.”
The man looked at her with sadness in his eyes.
“You must think I’m quite silly to feel like that when I’m dressed like a princess and live a life of luxury. It does not make sense.”
“It does to me,” he said with a pitying look.
“How?” she asked shocked.
“You would not believe me if I told you now, but when you are ready I will show you.”

Weeks went by and every day the younger sister walked the streets of the city until she found the young man. The man continued to ask if she would return to his own country with him. Time and again she replied, “not yet”. Then one day, while they were walking together down the street past great buildings with the wealthy hurrying in and out, she asked him, 
“When I told you I felt poor in such a rich place, you believed me. When are you going to tell me why?”
“Do you want to see?” he asked. 
Several weeks, even a couple of days ago, she would have laughed at him for asking such a silly question so seriously, but today, she simply answered.
“I do.”
He reached up beside her face and unclasped something from her hair. She felt something fall over her face. Putting her hands up quickly, she tried to grab it. But what she felt was not that something had fallen over her face but that something had fallen from it. For her fingers felt her skin. A clothe, that she had covered her just before now, lay on the ground. 

Bringing her hands down, she looked up at the street. The rich buildings she had been admiring were suddenly altered. The great stone and glass buildings just before glowing in the sunlight now appeared crumbling, glass broken, paint peeling. Rather than lined with flowers, the street was strewn with rotting garbage. The bustling people just a moment ago clad in brilliant colors and expensive clothes were now dressed in deteriorating rags. Rather than carrying in their arms bags and boxes overflowing with expensive commodities, the boxes were loaded with rocks and the bags were loaded with rags and moth eaten clothes. 
She now looked down at herself. She too was no longer in her fine gown, but the dress that barely clung to her was thread bare and tattered.
​
“What have you done?” she exclaimed.
But when she looked back at the poor young sailor, she saw a sturdy built man dressed as a great lord. 
“Who are you?” she gasped. 
“I will tell you in time,” he replied, “Do you understand what you see?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t believe it’s true. It cannot be true.”
With that she left him and ran back to the Duke’s mansion. 

“Sister, what has you so frazzled?” her older sister asked when she burst into their apartments. “You must be famished. Come, have some refreshments. The Duke has just sent up these fine fruits for us.”

The low table was hardly more than a thin wood board hammered on top of four mishapped wooden legs. The metal platter, to which the older sister regally motioned her arm, was piled with grapes that were covered in mold. As the younger sister stood still, the older sister reached down to the platter, took two or three of the furry grapes, placed them in her mouth, and slowly chewed them. Then she took several more between her fingers. She held them up to the younger sister. The younger sister covered her mouth and recoiled back. 

“What is wrong with you?” the older sister demanded, “Why do you look as if I were giving you something rancid?”
The younger sister looked and saw now for the first time that her older sister wore a veil over her face. As she turned to leave the room, her older sister grabbed her arm, 
“Where are you off to so soon? I have seen how every day you run out to the streets. The Duke noticed too. He asked me about it today. Who are you always so eager to see?”
​
The younger sister pulled her arm from her sister’s grasp and hurried out of the room, out of the house, and into the city street. But he was gone. She searched the whole city. That night she returned to the Duke’s house alone. Had the young man returned to his country without her?

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There was once a beautiful young bride. Her husband loved her. When they married, he promised her that one day they would have a lovely home of their own and he would provide her everything she could ever need.

In the early years of their marriage, her husband provided just enough to make ends meet, and they constantly moved from place to place. But the wife trusted her husband would keep his promise to her.

Then the day arrived, and he brought her to their new home. It was everything he had promised her. Not only that but all she wanted was at her fingertips.

However, she had a problem. Her husband was perfect. He did not have a single flaw. She was not perfect. The more time they spent together the more she realized how imperfect she was.

One day while her husband was away on business, she noticed a young man pass by the door of her home. He stopped and talked with her. She realized that the young man did not expect her to be perfect. He did not expect her to change for him as her husband expected of her. 

Sometime later, her husband returned from his trip to find his wife and the young man alone in his house. Her husband was furious. She was surprised to see her perfect husband angry. After throwing the young man out, he said to her, “What have you found wrong with me that you have not remained faithful to me?”

The next day the young man again walked by her door. She invited him in. The husband returned from work later in the day. Walking through his home, he passed by their room to see the two of them together. 

To her shock, her husband divorced her. So, she went to live with the young man. She sold her jewelry, that her husband had given her, to buy gifts for her lover. Years went by and she moved from lover to lover, growing more and more discontent. 

One day while walking down the main street, she was intercepted by her lender. He demanded payment. She had no money, and she begged for time. The lender consented but warned it was the last time her payment could be forestalled and the next time the balance would be required in full.

She went from friend to friend, but none would give her anything. She went to the house of her lover. He did not answer. She went to the man she had known before that and before that. None would help her. Finally, she came to the door of the young man. He answered his door. When she said who she was, he laughed and replied that she, a dirty prostitute with matted hair and dressed in rags, could not be the beautiful young woman he had known so long ago.

Now she found herself on the old familiar street of her husband’s house. She remembered her husband, the perfect man she had left. Never before had she realized how far below him she was, how imperfect. As she turned to go, she saw her husband walking towards her down the street on his way home. He was walking with her lender. 

The two stopped her. The lender demanded payment. Her husband asked what she owed. When told, he left and went into the house. Returning, he gave the lender the deed to the house to satisfy her debt. The lender took it and left.

He asked her, “Will you leave your life and come back to me to be my wife?”

“How can I ever make myself good enough for you,” she asked, “Why would you give up anything for me after what I did to you?”

“Not because of who you are but because of who I am. Come back to me, and I can again make you perfect in my eyes.”

So she returned to her husband whose name is Love.

​“I remember how eager you were to please me
    as a young bride long ago,
how you loved me and followed me
    even through the barren wilderness. (Jer. 2:2)
“What did your ancestors find wrong with me
    that led them to stray so far from me? (Jer. 2:5)
  Is there any place you have not been defiled
    by your adultery with other gods?
You sit like a prostitute beside the road waiting for a customer.
    You sit alone like a nomad in the desert. (Jer. 3:2)
Yet you say to me,
    ‘…you have been my guide since my youth.
5 Surely you won’t be angry forever!
    Surely you can forget about it!’
So you talk,
    but you keep on doing all the evil you can.” (Jer. 3:4-5)
“O Israel, my faithless people,
    come home to me again,
for I am merciful.
    I will not be angry with you forever.
13 Only acknowledge your guilt.
    Admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God
and committed adultery against him
    by worshiping idols under every green tree.
Confess that you refused to listen to my voice.
    I, the Lord, have spoken! (Jer. 3:12-13)

​All through the prophets, we hear God repeat this story. In it, He casts Himself as the husband and His people as the unfaithful wife. We are His people. It is uncomfortable for us to live so near the perfection of God because it shows how imperfect we are. Day by day we must live in the purifying light of God, repenting of our disobedience to Him, and then putting on anew the perfect righteousness He gives us.