Love, Dad

I love how God took my most basic needs and made them simple. It’s not God that has made it difficult. The most basic desires, needs and questions are answered all throughout His Love Letter to me, the Bible, and I have allowed human thoughts to come in and confuse so many aspects of my life.

This morning I was laying in bed, sleeping in for the first time in a day short of seventy years, and my son, Aedan, age 6, came in and snuggled up against me. He didn’t want breakfast. He didn’t want me to settle an argument between him and his brother. He just wanted me…just to be near me. I scratched his back and drew around his little face. I tickled him under his chin and we talked a little. We laid there for about an hour, and I never even knew time had gone by. Then, just like that, he was ready to go. He had gotten his Mommy time and his little love tank was full, so he ran out to tackle the day.

My biggest lesson in seeing who God is came when I fell in love with my children. I would do anything for them and I protect them fiercely. I discipline them because I love them and I don’t want them to get hurt. I desire for them to grow up and be good people and followers of Christ. I can’t choose for them to do right, but I can be there for them when they fall and offer guidance and experience.

I love them.

A lot.

How much more does God love us?

I think that’s why God calls Himself our Heavenly Father. There is no other way for us to understand what kind of love that God has for us. What kind of love would send His Son to the cross for me? Could I sacrifice that much for a bunch of people that couldn’t stand me? Could I sacrifice my child for people that spit in his face?! Writing that out brings pain to my heart!

If God would have not called me into motherhood, I don’t know how I could have possibly known the love that a parent feels for their child. God had to break it down for me. That is how He looks at me. That is how He loves me, but ten fold.

My son doesn’t ask me to love him. I just do. I adore him. I love everything about him. I love that he is part of us, part of our family, and I love that his personality is vastly different from mine but his face reflects that he is part of me. There is nothing that he could ever do that would make him any less my son. He will always be mine.

That kind of love is unconditional.

We put the rules on love. God never did. He loves us unconditionally. He never says that I have to earn His love. It just is, because God is love. Why do we have to mess that up? I don’t have to be perfect to be His child. I am not always obedient, either. He loves me anyway.

He just wants me to be near Him.

He just wants me to WANT to be near Him.

That way, I don’t run out into the world on empty. Simple time and love.

Finding my weigh means seeing that God loves me no matter what. I don't want to lose weight to impress a world that is very un-impressed with me. This world has charmed me into believing that love is a condition that is based on what I do right, if I am thin enough and if I am pretty enough. That is just a set up for failure. I can't live up to those expectations. I don't want to live up to those expectations.

Proverbs 31:30
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

He loves me right here, right now. He loves me just because He has built me this way. I have chosen wrong things that have done less for my body than He would desire. He still loves me. He still uses me. He desires more for me, but He will love me through it all.

That’s God’s best for me.