The Closest Thing to God's Love on Earth
I received a call from a former co-worker yesterday afternoon. She said she was on the way to the post office and, as she looked at her little boy, she thought, "I am so in love with this baby!" She said she had to call someone she thought would know what she was feeling.
I do know what she is feeling. A little over two years after my daughter's birth, I still find myself thinking, "I love this child so much!" She can drive me crazy sometimes and she can always make me laugh. She can go from happy to angry in a blink of an eye, leaving me and my husband scratching our heads. But I love that child with all my heart, no matter what she does or says or becomes. And that love I feel for her, by the mere thought of her, is one of only a few things on this earth that push me forward sometimes.
Parental love is something you can never comprehend until you have a child. And trying to describe it to someone who has never had a child is not an easy task. It is truly something you feel intensely yet cannot adequately describe in words.
I am currently in the middle of the book "The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness: Five Steps to Help Kids Create and Sustain Lifelong Joy" by Dr. Edward M. Hallowell. This book contains some of the best descriptions of parental love I have ever read. Dr. Hallowell is clearly a devoted parent who knows the power and intensity of parental love:
"When you allow yourself to love that much, knowing that someday you must say good-bye, when you show up, cheering and smiling and rooting for the good guys, all the while knowing that time is taking your children away from you and you away from your children, when even then you throw yourself into the moment and say, "I love you so much, I will not protect myself by holding back" - when you do that, you have won the greatest victory of all: you have not allowed time or pain or loss or death to keep you from loving and loving to the fullest that a human being can love.
"Over time the runaway bunny grows up. This is right and good and sweetly sad. When your child finally leaves home for college or a job or marriage, your heart does not break, as perhaps you once feared it would. Instead, it swells with pride, as you shed a tear. It makes sense, now, for this child who once was so little but now has grown tall, to go out into the wider world....
"When we have a child, we take a leap off a cliff into a magical air. We never stand on solid ground again...We learn fear that we've never known, joy that we've never felt, and uncertainty that knows no bounds. In that air we know the best in life, even if we collide at times with the worst.
"When you love a child, you transcend the worst that life has to offer. You stare it in the eye and say, 'Loving this child is better than anything bad you can throw at me.'
"For a moment you borrow God's tools and do God's work. Then God leaves you on your own, or so you often feel. But you are never alone. There are parents everywhere, and we all try to be there for one another. We all feel connected, whether we know one another or not."
I do know what she is feeling. A little over two years after my daughter's birth, I still find myself thinking, "I love this child so much!" She can drive me crazy sometimes and she can always make me laugh. She can go from happy to angry in a blink of an eye, leaving me and my husband scratching our heads. But I love that child with all my heart, no matter what she does or says or becomes. And that love I feel for her, by the mere thought of her, is one of only a few things on this earth that push me forward sometimes.
Parental love is something you can never comprehend until you have a child. And trying to describe it to someone who has never had a child is not an easy task. It is truly something you feel intensely yet cannot adequately describe in words.
I am currently in the middle of the book "The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness: Five Steps to Help Kids Create and Sustain Lifelong Joy" by Dr. Edward M. Hallowell. This book contains some of the best descriptions of parental love I have ever read. Dr. Hallowell is clearly a devoted parent who knows the power and intensity of parental love:
"When you allow yourself to love that much, knowing that someday you must say good-bye, when you show up, cheering and smiling and rooting for the good guys, all the while knowing that time is taking your children away from you and you away from your children, when even then you throw yourself into the moment and say, "I love you so much, I will not protect myself by holding back" - when you do that, you have won the greatest victory of all: you have not allowed time or pain or loss or death to keep you from loving and loving to the fullest that a human being can love.
"Over time the runaway bunny grows up. This is right and good and sweetly sad. When your child finally leaves home for college or a job or marriage, your heart does not break, as perhaps you once feared it would. Instead, it swells with pride, as you shed a tear. It makes sense, now, for this child who once was so little but now has grown tall, to go out into the wider world....
"When we have a child, we take a leap off a cliff into a magical air. We never stand on solid ground again...We learn fear that we've never known, joy that we've never felt, and uncertainty that knows no bounds. In that air we know the best in life, even if we collide at times with the worst.
"When you love a child, you transcend the worst that life has to offer. You stare it in the eye and say, 'Loving this child is better than anything bad you can throw at me.'
"For a moment you borrow God's tools and do God's work. Then God leaves you on your own, or so you often feel. But you are never alone. There are parents everywhere, and we all try to be there for one another. We all feel connected, whether we know one another or not."
posted by Margie at 11:13 PM
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