Zabenthung Dominic

He said he would never leave.
With trembling hands and a heart full of fire, Peter had sworn to stay beside Jesus—through prison, through death, through anything.
He meant it.
Oh, he meant it with all the love his fragile heart could carry.

But love is not always strong.
Sometimes, it is scared.
Sometimes, it forgets itself in the dark.

And so that night, beneath the aching hush of a cold Jerusalem sky, Peter stood by the flickering fire—not of courage, but of confusion. Shadows danced on his face. His breath came in fear.
A servant girl’s voice pierced the night.
“You were with Him, weren’t you?”

He could have said yes.
He could have remembered the touch that pulled him from the sea, the voice that called him “Rock,” the eyes that never stopped believing.
But instead—
“No.”
And then again—
“No.”
And with a third, trembling breath—
“I swear I don’t know Him!”

Then, the rooster cried.

And in that moment, the world grew unbearably still.

Peter turned—and Jesus was already looking.

Their eyes met across the distance.
It was not the look of a wounded friend.
Not the silence of judgment.
It was something else.
Something softer.
Something unbearably beautiful.

It was the look of someone who knew.
Who had always known.
And who still loved.

In that gaze, Peter saw everything—
the weight of his own frailty, the breaking of his promises,
and yet—
not a trace of rejection.

Only mercy.
Only love.
Love that stood there, still holding him in the same quiet tenderness as before.
Love that did not flinch when betrayed.
Love that had already forgiven him before the denial was even spoken.

And Peter could not stay.

He ran—ran from the fire, from the voices, from himself.
He wept, not with shallow guilt, but with a grief so deep it ached in the bones.
Because for the first time, he saw what love really was.
Not a feeling.
Not a vow.
But a love that stays—even when you don’t.

Jesus did not stop loving him at the sound of the rooster.
He didn’t love Peter less.
He loved him through it.

And isn’t that the love we are all longing for?
A love that sees us at our lowest and still draws near.
A love that waits for us in the courtyard of our collapse and says—I’m still here.
I never left.

Later, on the shore of a quiet morning, beside a gentle sea, Peter would hear His voice again.
Not scolding.
Not correcting.
Just calling.

“Do you love me?”
Not, “Do you remember what you did?”
Not, “Why did you fail me?”
Just love.
Just a beginning again.

Because that is who Jesus is.
He does not write us off.
He rewrites our stories—
not in ink,
but in tears,
and in mercy,
and in the fire of a love that will never, ever look away.