I love my mama. I hope she doesn't mind my posting this email from her here. She's da' bomb.
>>>>>from my mom, sent 6/17/05<<<<<
I think grace is easier to understand once you become a parent. You know in Romans 8:38-39 where it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God? Nothing my children can do will ever make me stop loving them. There is this strange thing that happens - even before birth- where you instantly love this child inside you. And once it is born, you fall deeply, completely in love with that child. It is truly a gift that God gives to parents and children. In all my years of working OB, it is the most wonderful phenomena to witness.
Now this child will love you one minute, and then say they hate you the next. They will be overtly disobedient, they will say things you wouldn't think possible, and they will even sometimes deliberately hurt you. You will get angry at them and you will be disappointed in them, but you never never stop loving them. They could not ever do something so bad that you quit loving them. There is this unbreakable bond called love that is so strong that nothing...I mean nothing... will ever even dent that bond. In fact they can be the best child in the world and you can't love them more for that either. The love is there in goodness and "badness" and it never changes. I think that is why Jesus' message of love is so powerful and prominent in his ministry. You can do things out of obedience and morality and even Christian ethics, but it will never be as strongly motivating as sincere love. Love really does conquer all. I think you could toss most everything in the Bible out if you only remember one thing "the greatest of these is love". Now if I love my children this much, how much more must God love them and me?? Many nights I sat by the window waiting for you and/or Jill to come home repeating this mantra "God loves them even more that I do. God loves them even more than I do." I can't imagine anyone loving you more than me - so God's love must be unfathomable. God's love is grace - it is a HUGE step above our love.
Even after that explanation there is still this lingering doubt...we all have it. But that is where faith sets in. You decide to believe what you can't understand. It is a difficult concept, but amazingly freeing when you do it.
I know this is still lacking in clarity. I love you for even asking.....
Mom
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4 comments:
She's definitely the bomb! That is probably the best example I could think of. It's only one a parent could give too! Way awesome and encouraging to me as well!
"If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. -- Letter 99, Paragraph 13. Erika Bullmann Flores, Tr. from: Dr. Martin Luther's Saemmtliche Schriften Dr. Johannes Georg Walch, Ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.), Vol. 15,cols. 2585-2590
Some thoughts from the Lutheran perspective - food for thought:
MARTIN LUTHER'S EIGHT STATEMENTS
ON JUSTIFYING FAITH
1. Faith without works is sufficient for salvation, and alone justifies
2. Justifying faith is a sure trust, by which one believes that his sins are remitted for Christ's sake; and they that are justified are to believe certainly that their sins are remitted.
3. By faith only we are able to appear before God, who neither regards nor has need of our works; faith only purifying us.
4. No previous disposition is necessary to justification; neither does faith justify because it disposes us, but because it is a means or instrument by which the promise and grace of God are laid hold on and received.
5. All the works of men, even the most sanctified, are sin.
6. Though the just ought to believe that his works are sins, yet he ought to be assured that they are not imputed.
7. Our righteousness is nothing but the imputation of the righteousness of Christ; and the just have need of a continual justification and imputation of the righteousness of Christ.
8. All the justified are received into equal grace and glory; and all Christians are equally great with the virgin Mary, and as much saints as she is.
I trust completely in works, just not my works. i trust in the works of Jesus Christ. His works are not vaporware.
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