The Road to You

My son asked for some of my candy bar. I gave him a piece of it. He responded with. “I love you mom.”

My question for him was, “Do you still love me when I say no?”

See I’ve found his love to feel more than a bit conditional. I know that when I say no, it hits hard. He doesn’t take it well. There is usually some screaming, and accusations of my apparent meanness…. I just wondered if while he was in a happy yes moment, if my son could consider that I love him even when I need to say no.

This little interaction got me thinking…

So often when parenting I hear myself talking to my kids and reprimanding behavior, or trying to guide them to look at things differently than they are.. I think, “Wow, I do this to you God don’t I?” When I ask for something and I don’t get an immediate yes, I get mad. I get sad. I get accusatory. Then, I decide I must not be loved. Just like a child, asking for a candy bar….love feels conditional…

Yet I find I feel loved, and I feel loving, when I get what I want….but the truth is I’m always loved, and so are you. No matter what way the test for a diagnosis comes back. You’re loved. No matter if there’s a pregnancy test that says yes, or not..You’re loved. No matter what. You are loved.

True love is from God. And God sent His son to die for ALL. If true love is found in the One who sent His son and died for all. Then Love isn’t all yeses and happiness. Jesus even asked “if it be thy will take this cup.” Well, the cup wasn’t taken. He went to the cross. He was tortured and killed. For Love.

I hate that as Christians we can get confused about the love of God. Due to some misuse of scriptures we can be caught up in a cycle of thinking that says when you get good things and the answers you want, then you are faith filled and loved by God. That’s just not accurate. You are loved first and the answers that follow are just part of your journey towards heaven. If God says yes, no, maybe, or wait-any of His answers when listened to, trusted in, and obeyed still leads you toward heaven. Moses didn’t want to go speak to Pharoah. God chose Moses, God loved Moses, and God still said, “Go.“

We pray for a child and then can’t get pregnant…or we ask for a job that we enjoy and it doesn’t come….or we pray to be healed..and we aren’t…or we pray for the adoption to go through and the birth mom chooses to parent.

Our hearts hurting doesn’t equal God not being good and loving….it hurts to get told no…no’s can leave us with questions for God…In the no, and the not yet…He loves you. You can trust Him with your sadness, your disappointment, and in my case I usually have a good bit of anger.

Do you believe that if you aren’t happy then you aren’t loved? Sometimes it’s ok to not be happy. We can learn a lot when we don’t like where we are. We can learn how to be better at waiting, we can learn to be stronger in our holding of hope, we can learn to look around and have compassion on other people in their “not yets” too. If we were always happy and content in our circumstances I don’t think we would care as much for others in their pain. We wouldn’t relate. We wouldn’t feel the drive to walk alongside others who hurt and encourage them. We in other words, would be like a small child just always wanting our way without a care for the bigger world of people around us.

Right now, I am not in a season of all yeses. Some things I got a yes on I cried about the yes…..because what if you pray for answers and the answers are hard to hear? Glad to have them, and lamenting them at the same time….yep. me too….

But I hold fast to the anchor of my soul. I know I am loved. I know that even in this moment God can use what I feel (sadness) to encourage you. We won’t always be this sad. Even if on earth we never fully leave sadness behind it’s ok. Because this earth is not our home! I’m headed home where not a tear will fall, and I love heading there with my friends. To you my friend, on this day that may not feel extra sunny or cheerful I say the following:

Hey friend…this is hard isn’t it?! Why didn’t someone tell us not to grow up?! How about we walk together and hope that there are good times ahead. Let’s look for the fun, the joy, and the peace even if our best times are truly only going to be fully good in heaven…..while walking alongside each other I hope to make you laugh with the insane events of my days…or maybe we send GIFS of people crawling towards a finish line…but just know that even the act of walking alongside YOU, and being able to say anything that might encourage you-that helps me look forward to another day traveling toward heaven.

The team needs you. Keep moving and when you feel up to it, cheer someone onward. When you don’t feel up to it, find someone near you in a similar season and link arms. It’ll cheer you up to hold each other up on this earthly road home.