This post is exceptionally long, and you probably won’t read it all. But it’s from my heart, and I hope you’ll take time to consider reading it.
Tonight as I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner (something I do only once in a blue moon) and keeping an eye on Elena while Nancy was getting ready to head out to some meetings, I had a profound realization. I love my daughter. I love her almost as much as I love my wife.
She was playing in her playpen and had tipped over sideways in a wonderfully contorted position that only an aspiring gymnast could accomplish. She is not yet strong enough to right herself, and she was laying uncomfortably over several toys and struggling to get up. This is a position she finds herself in quite frequently. Sometimes she manages to make her way onto her stomach (not much more comfortable). Always she ends up whining for help. I smile at this whine (so far, she’s only 8 months old). Never yet has it been annoying to me. This is when I realized I love her.
I walk over and tenderly sit her back upright she goes back to playing without much acknowledging my assistance. A minute later, we repeat the process. These sort of things go on throughout the day. She must be hand-fed. She poops and pees all over herself and we must change her diapers. Soon she’ll be disobeying and we will have to discipline her, which I’m really not looking forward to.
All of this however reminds me how much I love her. These little inconveniences do not annoy me, or make me frustrated at her. Then again, I don’t have to put up with it nearly as much as Nancy does, so maybe I don’t have enough credibility yet to make this next assertion.
This must be fairly close to exactly the way God feels about us, only with him it is to the nth degree. He loves us perfectly and always will. We are like children in his eyes and his love for us is much the same (deeper still) as (than) a parent’s love for their child. Unconditional. Unbreakable. Unfailing. Relentless. Perfect.
This analogy goes very deep, very wide, very high, doesn’t break down very easily. I believe the order of things was created this way. Just as a husband’s relationship with his wife gives us a picture of Jesus’ relationship to the Church, so a parent’s relationship to a child gives us a picture of God’s love for his children. This analogy, as immense as it may be, however, has several strange twists. The first one:
Not all of us are God’s children.
[...]
March 31, 2007
9 Comments