By this time next month I will be a father. I have ceased attempting to understand what fatherhood means and what parenthood is, I do not know and I will find out soon enough. There are so many aspects of being a parent that I am bound to mess up, not understand even after the baby comes, and wonder if I am doing right. No parent told me that he/she was anything but scared the first night the baby was at home. No parent, who is at all honest, believes mistakes have not been made. No parent claims to have been ready for all of what was going to happen.
In the midst of all the uncertainties surrounding parenthood there is one thing that is certain. There is one thing, which while I cannot yet understand, I know will happen. In story after story of parenthood that has been shared with me no one felt they could underestimate the love that overwhelmed them at the moment they held their child. I have heard some proclaim, “I never knew I could love that much.” “My heart started overflowing.” “I still cannot believe how my whole body and mind became love when I held my child for the first time, here was my child, in my arms.”
I eagerly await my turn to enter into the pantheon of love that is known as parenthood. For all of that which is unknown, this singular known element of becoming a father is worth every second of worry. Holding that baby boy will open me to a whole new understanding of God’s love. When my whole being becomes love for someone brand new, I hope I have the strength of faith to remember that God’s whole being is love pouring upon my baby at that moment too. I hope I remember that when I am crying tears of joy, God is also crying tears of joy. I hope I consider that as much as I feel love more than ever before, God still loves more! And in the moment of clarity may faith grant me the understanding to recognize how much God loves each of us!
God already loves my baby more than I will ever be able to love him. Think about that, God loves more than we can understand. When we are so overwhelmed with love our lives change, are hearts melt, are tears become joyous, smiles cannot be wiped from our faces, and we spread joy wherever we go, God still loves more. If you have felt the love for someone else that I am describing, if you have felt a love so overwhelming you love just thinking about it, know this, that is the way God loves you and more.
So many of us go about our lives not celebrating the way we could. We could be celebrating life in each moment no matter how bad it is, because in each moment God holds us like a parent holds a brand new baby. God holds you in his arms looking down at you smiling a smile bigger than life, his heart exploding with love grander than ever thought possible, tears streaming from his face as he considers what he created, if you are perfect to no one else in the world you are perfect to him, perfect in a way that ensures his love for you has no bounds.
This Thanksgiving, give thanks to God for this way that you are loved. Try to see yourself as God sees you, the object of all of his love, the beloved, the child that makes him see the whole world as a different place, a place that is better because you are in it now. When I hold my baby on Thanksgiving, I hope I will be thanking God for being his baby held tight in the blankets of love.
Riding the wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
1 comment:
Beautiful. As a person with one parent who seems to harbor more anger than love in their soul, it is good and comforting to remember God's love is as it should be. Thank you, Garrett, for reminding me of this.
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