God loves my kids more than I do?? Really???

I thought I would take a break from the Second Christmas for a moment to share a thought that Deänne and I tossed around yesterday.

As many of you may know, our daughter’s husband is in treatment for an aggressive form of Lymphoma and walking along with them through this experience has brought many opportunities to wonder at and about our relationship with God from every side. Honestly, we have had our deep times as some other of my blog posts are evidence of; but, this is not one of those!

A phrase that often gets tossed about in believing homes is “God loves my children more than I do.” Okay, I can get behind this from an intellectual point of view, but let me be blunt; I would do anything for my kids, and they know it. Our love for them is one of the deepest emotions we feel. I don’t think we are alone in this. It is very hard to REALLY believe that God could love them more.

Deänne was quick to chime in, reminding me that God sacrificed himself – in Jesus his son – for us while “we were yet sinners,” enemies of God. Okay. That’s certainly the “nth” degree of love. It would be hard to imagine sacrificing one of our kids for the life of an enemy. I can’t really wrap my mind around that.

But there is another way that came to mind yesterday as a result of our thinking about our daughter’s path. God loves them more than we do in that he has his entire family to call upon to demonstrate that love. Other people have sacrificially loved Erin, James and there little family in ways that we just could not. We live in Colorado while they are in California. James’ family, of course, was there for them over and over. People bring them meals on a regular basis. Someone anonymously gave them a new washer when theirs needed to be replaced. Many of their friends gave money they could have used for so many other things to them to cover their co-pay of thousands of dollars. These are just some of the ways God has loved them. Even if we had been there and wanted to, we could not have loved them this deeply.

God can and does love us and our children in ways we only get a glimpse into during dark times. I hope that during this season of the Greatest Gift we take every opportunity to love each other as the very hands, feet and mouth of God. Be a loving gift of God to someone today. Merry Christmas!