I love my kids. A lot. 

As I’m sure you do as well if you are a parent.

When someone messes with my kids, it brings out the inner Mama bear. If I see someone push my Kate or Jack on the playground, it’s time for war. Even if someone innocently misunderstands my child, I feel angry. How do they not “get” my child. Don’t they understand how special they are? 

Imagine with me. 

There’s a boy down the street. And he has it out for my little four year old princess. He pushes her, call her stupid, tells her she can’t play with him. He makes her feel, for the first time in her little life: fear, loneliness, anger, sadness.

We find out this little boy is going to die. He has a rare, incurable disease. His only chance of survival is a heart transplant. And our little Kate is a match. Kate will have to die in order for this little boy to live. 

So we decide to lay our little Kate’s life down so this punk kid down the street can live. And she willingly agrees. 

After this transaction takes place, we offer this little boy to come live with us. He needs a mommy and daddy who loves him. We will be his home. 

He looks at us, spits in our faces and says he doesn’t need us. 

Our home remains open. Our arms extended for the day he might change his mind.

This story is absurd, right? Incomprehensible.

I would NEVER give up my Kate. Especially for a boy who tortured her. Who never understood the special gift she was. Who constantly took advantage of her. Who made her feel loneliness and sadness for the first time in her innocent life.

And then to offer him my home again and again after such rejection? 

Who would ever do such a thing?

I’ve been wrecked by the love of the Father for me. This is what He has done for me: the punk kid down the street who spit on, laughed at and beat His son. I didn’t understand who He was. And really didn’t care to know. And yet He chose to give up His precious boy to save this bratty little girl who cared only for herself. It’s absurd, right? Incomprehensible. 

Ephesians 3:17-19, “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.