Why is it so hard for parents to believe in God’s unconditional love?

My son is six months old! He’s the best baby that’s ever existed, which I’m sure you know. He’s doing all the normal things a six month old should do: putting every possible thing in his mouth, drooling enough to drown a small animal, peeing mid diaper change, getting mad because he can’t crawl, accidentally head butting whoever happens to get in his face, pulling out my hair, yelling for fun, and pooping much, much more than seems humanly possible.  I find myself overwhelmed with unconditional love for this tiny ball of human.

He’s also becoming unbelievably adorable. Everybody says so, y’all.
We’re having a blast! We are more tired, stressed, pressured, overwhelmed, and under prepared than we have ever been. I personally fluctuate between feeling like “okay I might kind of know what’s going on here” and “holy lord of all, what am I even doing” so that’s fun. I’ve become that person who snapchats exclusively about her child and can hardly talk about anything that isn’t baby related. I hardly recognize myself sometimes but I feel more myself than I ever have. It’s amazing to me how with my wedding I felt I was adding a part of myself I didn’t know I was missing, and now, it’s happened again with this tiny baby.

It’s interesting too because the term “unconditional love” has totally new meaning. I always knew in my brain that unconditional love never ended or lessened but now I see it as so much more. I have a tiny, completely dependent creature that can’t talk, walk, or keep his dang food in his mouth, but I am still so proud of him. He does nothing to deserve my pride, he doesn’t know when he’s pleasing me or behaving properly, but I am nonetheless so deeply appreciative of him and his actions. This child doesn’t have the means to pay us back for what we do for him. He doesn’t even know that we sacrifice for him or that there are things for which he owes us. But we are so happy to give and provide for him. We are so filled with love and affection for him that those things don’t even cross our minds. He smiles that big goofy toothless smile and I’m putty.

I am an imperfect person (Duh, right?). I am small and insignificant. Granted, I don’t poop my pants and I am capable of intelligent conversation, but in the grand scheme of things, I am like a child. I mess up, I am needy, and I do nothing to deserve unconditional love. But WOW. God gives it anyway. I’m not sure where the breakdown is, because I’ve had this conversation with other moms, but it’s hard to reconcile the ideals of unconditional love from us to our children, and unconditional love from God to His children.

If Asher spits up in my mouth while laughing, I love him. If he poops in my hand while I’m changing him, I love him. If he gives me a fat lip when he hits me with that giant egghead, I love him. If he pees through his diaper onto my freshly cleaned sheets, I love him. If he starts to cry because he spit out his pacifier but now he wants it back, and it happens to be the very moment I drift off to sleep, I still love him. (It may seem like I’m speaking from experience here…) practice uncondi love_75 I love him so much more than what even makes sense. He is imperfect, but he is perfect to me.

Why then is it so hard to understand God’s love for us? If we slip up with a repeated sin, he loves us. If we gossip, he loves us. If we forget to thank Him or even talk to Him, he loves us. If we lie, or cheat, or covet, or steal, or even if we decide to live in a way that we know is not what God approves of, or do drugs or get drunk… He loves us. He is not always pleased, no. Our actions hurt him sometimes. And many times our choices break his heart. He can be overwhelmed with grief at our distance from him – but. He. Loves. Us.

It makes it hard to come up with an excuse to neglect Him, don’t you think?

That is all.

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