Friday, October 22, 2010

The Math of Heaven

Ten years later, our third child is here. Someone wiser and funnier than me said: "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans." She is our little surprise gift from God and my latest lesson from Him, too.

I'm human, really really human. And I''ve admitted more than once that I'm a stupid human at that. Some of you say "Amen" and I understand. It seems pretty stupid now, but just a matter of hours ago, something down deep in this stupid human wondered: "Can I possibly love another child the way I love the two I've had for 9 and 12 years respectively?" I think I asked the same question 9 years ago about my second child, my son, but I guess I'd forgotten the answer or at least the certainty of it. But that all changed when I saw Anna Grace. Then I heard her cry. Then I touched her skin. Then I held her. I loved her, like she'd always been here. I loved her like I had never not loved her. We all did. And we always will.

This was another opportunity for God to teach me an important lesson that applies to more than just loving and parenting our newest addition to the family. This is a lesson that I need to understand for every kind of relationship I might ever have. I think it's probably one that everyone who reads this can use, too.

We sometimes fear new relationships, fail to initiate them, or fail to fully engage in them because we are under the mistaken impression that in order to "add" love toward someone we will have to "subtract" it from somewhere else. Love operates by the math of heaven, not the math of men. It multiplies! It is not function of addition and subtraction!

I'm grateful that God gave me a new opportunity to love. I'm grateful that he gave me the same opportunity to BE LOVED! God had a Son already, yet he sent His Son so that we might become Sons too. Galatians 4:4-7 ESV says:

4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

First, God multiplied His love toward me by giving His child for me in order to make me his child too. Wow! And now God multiplied His love toward me today by giving me another child to love! Wow! Thank you Lord!