This post was originally written to a gathering of CeCe McDonald’s family, friends, and Support Committee, which she organized from within the Hennepin County jail. The letter was written a few weeks before her trial was set to begin. She asked us to share it with the greater public as a blog post.

April 12, 2012

A couple of days ago I woke up and felt drained so I found some inspiration in the Bible. I usually don’t read the Bible, but that day it called for me. And as usual I don’t go looking, yet I let it lead me, and it took me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verses 1 through 13, which gave me strength & peace. It talks about love, which is the best way of all. It says,

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I had the understanding of a child. When I became a [wo]man I put childish ways behind me. Now we see only a dim likeness of things. It is as if we were seeing them in a mirror. But someday we will see clearly. We will see face to face. What I know now is not complete. But someday I will know completely, just as God knows me completely. The three most important things to have are faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of them is love.”(1Cor 13:11-13)

This passage was almost poetry to me, but most importantly I acknowledged and understood what the scripture was telling me. For a long time in my own life I struggled to know the identity of love. I searched high and low, and the wanting of love resulted in me conceiving a false love for others and myself. And like the scripture said, I saw things more clearly and I’ve seen those things face to face in reality. When I have given up on love, whether it be with me, my family and friends, or even my partners, I realized that love is unending and cannot be avoided. And it started with myself. And all the while I searched and longed for love, and didn’t even love myself. So that’s where I started, and now I have enough love within me to love myself and all of you.

I love you all because you all invested in me what I could have not done on my own. Your own time, dedication, and emotions. And wherever it may have come from, it has given me the motivation and inspiration to fight for all of us. Society says that love is one way and very black and white, but we all know that love is a bustling highway and bursting with all vivid colors. They tell us who we can and can’t love, how we should love them, and why. And well, that’s not love at all because love is natural, organic, how it was intended to be before it was used for greed and manipulation. Love can never be manufactured!

Those who oppose us couldn’t stop the love which has, and was defined, to bring us all together. To give us the strength and the mental durability to go the distance and fight this evil who tells us we are wrong. We all were made in the image of God, and he makes no mistakes.

I love all of you, no matter what, and I believe in my heart that you love me too. We are all different with different beliefs and a different story to us all, but we are connected through that and our love for each other draws us closer. What’s most important is to love those who hate you and have wronged you, for they are wrong and they only see love on a one-way street. But they are still lost and do not know love at all. This situation I’m in would have made one second guess their own faith, trust, and love but I know where my heart and mind is. Plus, the support of all those I love lets me know there is no situation or hardship that I or any of us can’t overcome.

Now with everything in my life that has happened to me up until what I am facing now I know that God and love has brought me through it all and will continue to after it is done. I just want my love to spread throughout to inspire, to celebrate, to endure. To be patient, kind, understanding, loyal, and selfless, because that’s what love is. I know all our love can change the ways of the ignorant and the hearts that have been hardened. Not just for us now, but also for all the generations who will come after us. So that they can live and thrive and show each other love, vividly and honestly.

I love you all, and I give much thanks and appreciation.

-CeCe ❤