God, My Father and Mother

Isaiah 49:15-16(NIV)

15 "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! 16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.

Psalm 139:1-5

1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

John 3:16(NIV)

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

I Corinthians 6:11(NIV)

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Before I had a child, I watched with amusement one Mother's Day as a friend walked into church bedecked with paper leis and fruit loop bracelets.   Seeing the amused expression on my face, she returned it with a well-used expression of her own, one only a mommy could give, that clearly said, "Don't even go there!"  My own mother could silence her brood with a look.   It was a look I tried to style with my mom eyes, eyes that could see what my child was doing, even if the eyes were on the back of my head.   There's nothing like the love of a mother to teach you that unconditional love doesn't mean unconditional acceptance of sin.   God wants well-behaved children, but clearly knows that we will to our dying day still be children, willful and prone to wander.   It's why he sent his Son, Jesus, to redeem us from our sins.   Ah, blessed forgiveness!   It allows us to crawl onto God's lap with confidence that there we will find Love.   

"You Cannot Lose My Love" - Sara Groves