Children

God loves me – even when I hurt…

Christ carrying the Cross (Luis de Morales)

I love my children very much.

Despite all my limitations and all the things that I get wrong and do wrong and under achieve, I love my children very very much indeed.  Perhaps – because I love them with a mere human love – I am doing it the wrong way?  Perhaps, if I were a more perfect human being, I could love them more perfectly?  We spend so much time these days analysing the ways that we love and connect with others.  We consider the ways that our families connected with us and then extrapolate this out until we have a situation where we are understanding how we connect with others and somehow it all comes back to blaming (in a way) the upbringing that we had.

And I have been reflecting on this.  You see, I believe that I have a very good mother and a very good father.  I know that I have criticised and critiqued them over the years, but I also know – equally – that they could not have tried better to act in my best interests.  I also know that they could not have done more to help me in my life.

And I have been thinking about this as I have been thinking about the way that I love my own children.  After all, I lost my youngest child before he was even born, and as a result of the terrible grief that followed, I often thought to myself that losing that child was a sign of God’s displeasure with my parenting because He did not want to inflict any more children to my care.  It took me many years – and infinite Grace – to be able to be a little more kind to myself as a mother.  You see, I was born to be a mother.  I always knew that I would be a mother.  Should I not have been given the gift of my children, I would have been a spiritual mother in any case.  And I tend to adopt the role of spiritual motherhood with others – even my own siblings and parents and other adults (at times).

And this makes me think about God Himself and my Spiritual Mother, the Blessed Virgin.  You see, as a mother – a merely human one – I am willing to do almost anything for my children.  I am even willing to argue with them and fight them on issues if I believe that they are not acting in their own best interests.  I am willing to help them to be the best version of themselves they can be.  And this means that I am willing to be the “bad guy” sometimes.  It means that I am willing to be the unpopular parent sometimes.  And it means that I am willing to make any sacrifice for them that I have the power to make.

And when I compare this to the infinite love and ability of God, I am quite overcome.  Because God adopted me as His Child…  And He did this purposefully.  And then He asked the Blessed Virgin to trade her Beloved Son with my miserable sinful soul…  And she accepted that.

And He did it because He knows that I could understand how great a love that is – the love of a parent for their child.  And in knowing that I would always know that God loves me – even when I hurt…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.