And yet, even into my newlywed years, the concept of human love being anything more than good feelings flew right over my head. In all those years, I must have done something because of love rather than duty, guilt, shame, or what I’d get out of it, but I still didn’t understand that love was a choice that I could make.
Until I was a mom.
They say the longest distance in the world is the ten inches from the head to the heart, and that certainly rings true. In my case, however, covering that distance took precisely 21 ¾ inches and a little more than nine pounds of baby.
Let’s take a slight detour here for a moment. How much did you know about driving a car, really, before you sat behind the wheel? If you were like me, prior to taking the test for your driver’s permit, you probably read the manual. You might even have studied it. And hopefully you passed. For me, it wasn’t until I actually had my hands at ten and two on the steering wheel (that’s how we did it when I was a kid) and my foot hovering over the gas pedal with my dad riding shotgun that it hit me: “Wow. This is a big deal. I better take this seriously.” In other words, it was personal. I was calling the shots. I was accelerating and braking and turning and avoiding potholes and pedestrians. If I ever wanted to pass the driving test and get my license, I was going to have to demonstrate that I was a competent driver. And I learned to drive by … driving. I practiced. My dad was my coach from the passenger seat, but I was the one behind the wheel. I had to choose to do it.
Now, as the mom of a teen itching to get her driver’s permit, the thought of fifteen-year-olds cruising around on the highways and byways scares the poop out of me. I don’t think I’m alone in my anxiety.
Here’s the point: To genuinely show love to those around us, we have to practice being loving to them—not just in our words, but in our actions, too. Those fizzy, fluttery, twitterpated, lovey-dovey feelings may be MIA, but we can choose to do the next loving thing anyway. And I’ve been around the block enough times to know that it’s tough to flip a U-turn with my behavior when my thoughts are angry, unkind, and resentful. I have to choose to shore up my thoughts so that they’re loving, too.
It sounds like an awful lot of work, doesn’t it?
Except, here’s an often overlooked reality: You’re already doing it.
You’re already doing the work of being loving, my friend. Every mom knows exactly what it’s like to sacrifice her own body; brain cells; schedule; short-, mid-, and longterm plans; and personal hygiene for the sake of her kids. The question is: are you doing the work, making the sacrifices, offering it up … with love? BOY-YOY-YOY-YOING!! That’s the sound of me being convicted by my own words. Every day, I have to ask myself: am I doing small things (and big things, too—have you seen my laundry pile?) with great love, as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux said, or am I complaining about the cooking (gah), the dishes (oy), the clutter (gak), the driving (oh, my word), the children’s sass (!!) and all of the 9,432,681 things that come with being a mom?
I’ll always remember when I realized what a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal I tend to be about certain tasks. It turns out that I can get all the laundry washed, folded, hung up, and put away, but if I’m not doing it with love, I’m missing the point. I can master meal-scheduling, crush grocery-shopping, successfully herd everyone out the door, get them where the need to be on time, and slay my to-do list … but if I don’t have love, what is the point? (See 1 Corinthians 13:1–3.)
Eventually, I asked myself: what would happen if I just did these small (and big) things with as much love as my overwhelmed, overworked, overtired, overstimulated mind, body, and soul could muster? Wouldn’t that make a much more pleasing sacrifice to God than if I grumbled the whole time? I thought of the widow in Mark’s Gospel (see 12:41–44), who only had two copper coins to give. That totaled—wait for it—a penny. And yet Jesus said her offering was worth more than what everyone else gave to the treasury, because she gave everything she had, not just a little bit from the extra she had left. Depending on the day and circumstances, I’m not sure I have even half a coin’s worth to give! But if I am only able to offer that half coin, if I can choose to give it with love, God is very pleased with my offering.
Let God love on you
Speaking of God being pleased, do you know how much God loves you? I know, I know. Maybe this sounds cheesy and makes you really uncomfortable, but please hear me out.
Think about the one person who loves you the very most out of every other human being on this entire planet. This person is your “ride or die”—the one who, no questions asked, will rush to fill up your tank whenever you need it. Through good times and bad, they love you. Maybe this person is your husband, or your sister, or your best friend, or your own mother. If you have someone like this in your life, thank God for them! I pray you get to do life with this person every single day and twice on Sunday, or at least on a regular basis.
Some of us don’t have the blessing of a “ride or die” person in our lives, and that’s okay. Don’t lose heart! Keep praying that Mama Mary and Elizabeth of the Visitation will send you this kind of friend; I will pray for that, too! I’m thinking, though, that if you’re reading this book, you have one or more children in your life, or you hope to someday.
So … think about that child or those children. Consider how much you love them. How you’d do anything for them. How you sacrifice so much, so that they can have the kind of life you want them to have. How you worry when something’s wrong. How you celebrate when things go right. How you pray. How you hope. And pray some more. Think about how very much you love the children in your life.
But here’s the thing: we could combine all the love your ride or die has for you with how much love you have for your kids, add that to the love shared between each and every other person on our planet, and it would still be a substantially weak approximation of the love your heavenly Father has for you. Just you. Not the entire human race—you.
Because God’s love for you is infinite. Lavish. Extravagant. Beyond human comprehension. Before he formed you in the womb he knew you (see Jer 1:5). And he knows you still. He wants you. He’ll never turn his back on you, not ever. Because he loves you.
And he’s not a loophole lover, this God. He isn’t waiting for you to make a wrong turn, or miss your exit, or run out of gas so he can stop being burdened by loving you. Nope. No way, no how. His love for you is infinite, and it is unconditional. You are his beloved child, his precious daughter. You cannot do anything to earn or to lose his love. It just is.
Now consider not just loving your child, but sacrificing that child to save others. That would take a super huge love; some might even call it supernatural. And yet this is the immense love God shows for us—that even while we were still sinners, he sent his Son, Jesus, to die for us so that we might live (see Rom 5:8).
It’s actually sort of mind-blowing to consider how much he loves us.
Knowing how much God loves me motivates me. It guides and directs me. It helps me to continue to pour myself out for my family day in and day out, when I feel I don’t have anything left to give. I look to the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, and I see how my path to holiness—my vocation—echoes the ultimate sacrifice of Calvary. I also see my future. Not necessarily with literal death on a cross, but with the beautiful resurrection that awaits those whose lives most resembled Christ’s on this earth—the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. My life, your life, our children’s lives.
My friend, it is my greatest hope that you may acknowledge, accept, and be permeated with and re-created by God’s lavish and unfathomable love for you. I pray that it fills you up to overflowing, binding
