I love my children fiercely. Deeply. Passionately. I am an imperfect parent trying to raise my children in an imperfect world, and I fall down a lot. We do a lot of dusting off and trying again, each day. Every day.
But in raising my children, as imperfect as I am, I am learning about the depth of my Father’s love.
A couple weeks ago, I was inside working, while Reagan and Marella were outside playing with my husband and father-in-law. I was engrossed in what I was doing, trying to cross a few more things off my list, when I heard Reagan cry. Not a frustrated or a tired cry. A cry that said, “I’m hurt.”
Immediately, I was out the door, running to him (he later asked how I got out there so fast). I found him getting picked up by my husband. He had fallen out of a toy car, and skinned his elbow. His injuries were minor, but my attention to him was not. He was my son, and he was hurting, and I was going to make it better.
I heard his cries and I rescued him.
I’m an imperfect parent, but even in my imperfection, the cries of my child made me run to him.
I didn’t tell him to brush it off. I didn’t look at his wound and tell him it was nothing and to stop crying. I didn’t tell him I was too busy to take care of him.
I heard his cries and I rescued him. I scooped him up and took him inside and cleaned up his scrape and gave him a dinosaur band-aid and two gummy bears and walked him back outside.
How much more does our Father’s love cause Him to hear our cries and rescue us? How much more does a perfect Father, who knows our needs before we ask, run to us?
1 John 3:1: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”
For a lot of years, I viewed God as this eternal, distant being who was always mad at me, always disappointed in me, always frustrated by me. I had a good earthly father, but those views still lingered. It wasn’t until later in life — much later — that I began to realize how wrong those beliefs were, and how incorrect my assessment of Him really was.
When we hurt, much like when my son was hurt, it matters to Him. He sees our pain, and He cares — exponentially more than I cared about my son’s scrape.
Psalms 56:8: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
Psalms 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
I wrote earlier about my date with Reagan, before he started kindergarten. What I didn’t write about is the day before our date. We had such a challenging day that by 10:00 that morning, I called a friend in tears, convinced I would never, ever survive this parenting thing. Both children were sent to their rooms. Both children had misbehaved (we call it ‘making poor choices’ in our house, but they made a lot of poor choices). Both children lost toys.
But of course, I never once considered canceling our date. Poor choices or not, I love my son, and I was so delighted to be able to give him a special night out.
He didn’t say, “You really shouldn’t take me out. I don’t deserve it.” He didn’t ask if we were still going on our date because of his earlier transgressions. He didn’t keep bringing up all the things he did wrong while we were together. He was my child delighting in a gift I was giving him — but as much as he enjoyed it, I am sure I was enjoying it more.
It’s so fun to give our children good things, isn’t it? I had tears in my eyes for much of our date, because I was so enamored by him. I was delighting in him, and I wanted to soak as much of him in as possible. I wanted to do what he wanted to do. I was thrilled to let him ride the carousel, and to buy him candy and let him play with the Legos in the store.
Yet I’m an imperfect parent, stumbling every day. How much more does our Father’s love cause Him to delight in us?
I’m still figuring all of this out, and I have a long, long way to go.
Because I thought of God as this distant being who was so disappointed in me, I thought that He didn’t really want to give me good things. I mean, He might throw me a proverbial bone or two, but He certainly didn’t delight in me. He certainly wasn’t proud of me. He certainly didn’t want to give me good things. I thought I had a long way to go in living a life worthy enough to merit His favor.
Zeph. 3:17: “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Last week, Marella was very, very two. She was feisty and sassy and stubborn and disobedient. True story: she refused to put her boots away that she was playing with, and in trying to get her to obey, I told her to “Come here and look at me.” I was down at her level, and she walked right up to me, put her face close to mine, and closed her eyes, as if to say, “I’m not going to look at you.”
She had to sit in her ‘think about it’ space for a while, and she lost a toy. We talked about it, she cried, and kept saying, “I sorry! I sorry, Mama! I sorry!”
That night, not too long after I put her to bed, she had a terrible nightmare. She woke up screaming, calling for me. I ran upstairs, grabbed her and held her until she calmed down and was able to go back to sleep.
I didn’t say, “Before I pick you up, are you really sorry for what you did earlier?” I didn’t say, “I’ll comfort you, but I’m still mad at you because of the way you acted.” She is my child, and she was afraid, so I held her and calmed her fears.
How much more does our Father’s love extend to us? To me?
Ps. 86:15: “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
Matt: 7:11: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!“
Rushing to my children when they hurt, wanting to give them good things, delighting in doing things that delight them, even as imperfect as I am, reminds me how much more my Heavenly Father loves me. If I am imperfect yet long to give my children good things, how much more does He want to give us good things as well?
“God attaches no strings to His love. None. His love for us does not depend on our loveliness. It goes one way. As far as our sin may extend, the grace of our Father extends further.”~Tullian Tchividjian
