Love You, More

I love you.

I love YOU.

I love you, MORE.

I love YOU, more.

I love you, more, cuz I'm bigger. 

That last line was always the trump card when our kids were growing up and we were voicing a love-you-best competition.

                     

Today,  my third son, the first to be carried in my womb and to be birthed by my body, turned thirty-seven. As day breaks, I recall so distinctly how the miracle of his being brand new mesmerized me for weeks. On this morning, the dawn of a new year, I smile as I consider God 's grace and patience with me, in my growing-knowing as a mother, that it is God alone who has held this son's life over the years. God loves him more....cuz He's bigger. It is God's inexhaustible love for both parent and child that is the wonder of it all.

 Fresh home from the hospital, my head rested on a pillow-stack at the edge of our bed,  so that I had only to open my eyes and to reach into the basinette to make sure he was still breathing. One by one, I removed the pillows and, at some point, even turned over during the night. Despite my tendency to want to swaddle him in bubble-wrap to keep him safe, we did eventually moved him into a crib, to the nursery, and even turned out the light. This son did conquer climbing to the top rung of the swingset ladder. He did eventually cross the street alone. He did get his driver's license. Despite my overly -protective tendencies, he  parachuted from a small plane, piloted another and has survived innumerable risky adventures, I feel certain, of which only he and God are aware.

And now, this boy of mine is grown. He's a dad. He has a precious brood of his own. I watch with interest the unfolding of his fatherhood role. He is intentional. He gets it now. He has paced the floor with a crying baby. He knows the relief when the new day dawns on a breaking fever. He has experienced ER visits resulting in stitches and casts for broken bones (and is diligent about rewarding brave soldiers with ice cream). He has stood on the sidelines and cheered, applauded victories and tenderly empathized with disappointment in his children's behalf. He reads to his kids, prays with (and for) them and draws parallels of life lessons that encourage eternal perspective when the  present is overwhelming from a child's perspective. His discipline is fair, consistent and certain. His shoes are worn; his sleep is sparce; his hobbies, deferred, as he quietly sacrifices for those entrusted to his care. He has tasted of the pain of offspring discounting his counsel and begins to wonder how he will stay awake for teens returning home past his bedtime. The lack of sleep when they are toddlers and when they are teen-agers bear a totally different uneasiness.  

Lord,

Thank you for the privilege of being parents, for creating the parent-child relationship that we might more fully know the love of the Father here on earth. Thank you for your faithfulness to humble us when  we tend to operate from our own strength, to discipline us when we stray from your way and your Word, to encourage us when we realize our helplessness to provide for and to protect these children apart from You. Your sacrificial love causes ours to pale in comparison through the tenderness with which You scoop us up, dust us off and set us aright again when we have disappointed You, betrayed your trust and failed miserably. Thank you that you never sleep, never slumber, are always available and that our children can grow up knowing the God-who-is-always-there. Bemusing it is that You would allow your children to write on the lives of your other children. However imperfectly we love and live, You are faithful, Lord. We, along with the psalmist, declare our role a sacred trust: This will be written for a generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise The Lord.

                                     

My birthday morning text to my son expressed my gratefulness for his life, the delight I have know in watching him mature and my great love for him. His reply:

"I love you, too, Mama....even more because I'm bigger."

Hmmmmmmmmm.......he is bigger than me. 

And he gets it.