Someday my children will be grown. They'll make their own meals and think their own thoughts and pick out their own clothes and make their own decisions. I don't know what kind of mother I'll be to children who are in charge of their own lives. All I really desire for them is to live lives they can find peace in. I just hope they know that wherever the Lord leads them, whatever choices lie before them, there is nothing they will ever do that will separate them from my love. I am always there, right behind them, right next to them, on the other end of the phone, at the baggage claim of their destination airport, waiting to cheer them on, to console them, to hold them, to feed them. I will always pursue their love, especially when they feel completely unlovable. They are so incredibly precious to me, these five amazing people. I have known them so intimately from each first tiny movement. I have gazed at each of them for hours as they nursed, memorized every freckle, touched every tiny bit of skin, walked them when they were sick and crying, reassured them when they were scared, promised to always come back after I say goodbye.
How then, being who I am today, can I ever fail to feel the love of God? I know what it is to suffer for my children. I know what it feels like to watch my child beg to avoid discomfort. I know what it feels like to love them when they don't know how to love me back. Motherhood had given me such a unique glimpse at genuinely selfless live. What I do every day that they don't see? I love to do it anyway. I'm preparing them for their lives.
What stuns me to silence is that this intense, physical, unending love I have for my children is such a tiny fraction of the love my God has for me. He has watched every moment, counted every freckle, promised to always come back. He is preparing me for my eternal life. The culmination of my vocation has given me a tiny glimpse of what Heaven must feel like. I would imagine that heaven is watching your children fall in love with their children. Suddenly they realize just how much you've loved them all those years. Motherhood must be so special for God to watch. Suddenly they see a little flash of how loved they have always been. When they meet the tiny people they would happily die for, the only thing you've ever wanted them to know has been learned.
How amazing it must be for God as each immortal soul enters heaven. "You're here. You're finally here. Now do you see? This is what I've prepared for you!"
