Something About Parenting...

There’s something about being a parent that makes God’s love even harder to comprehend. I know, that sounds backwards compared to everything I’ve ever heard, but it’s true. There is this certain mysterious love that is unlocked the moment you first lock eyes with your child. It is a relentless, unyielding, yearning kind of love. It’s the kind of love that takes your breath away. There is a great responsibility with this love, but with the responsibility comes a great blessing.
For the first time in my life I think I might be able to comprehend an unchanging, steadfast love, and at the same time, I can’t believe a God that I can’t see, or anyone that I can, could feel the same way about me that I feel about my son, not to mention love me any stronger. Parenting makes the knowing in my head that Jesus loves me transfer to my heart.
There’s something about watching Bryton learn new things and say new things that makes me wonder if God was smiling when I hit my first homerun. It’s something so trivial, but it’s usually the trivial things that Bryton accomplishes that makes me most proud.
There’s this urgency in my heart for him to love Jesus. I’m almost ashamed to say that I feel this urgency for him even more deeply than I did for myself prior to my own salvation. I love Jesus with all I am, and I’ll never be more proud of Bryton than the day, God willing, that he comes to know and love Jesus.
It’s the unselfish, love others as yourself kind of love that Jesus talked about. And I wonder if God feels the same hurt for me that I feel for Bryton when he’s sad, or hurt, or upset. I wonder if God feels the same joy for me that I feel when Bryton succeeds at something or simply smiles.
And all of the wondering leads me to a deeper understanding that I may never understand the heart of God. To love a husband like I love my husband and to see marriage in it’s spiritual context, and to love my son like I love my son and to see parenting through God’s eyes as our ‘Father’, it shows me that despite two very deep kinds of love there is a greater love out there that exists, and that love exists for me and for you. It’s the love of God that loves my husband and my son more than I ever could. And, though unfathomable, He holds that same kind of love for each one of us.