Wednesday, July 9, 2014

All of Me

Months ago, a sweet friend of mine encouraged me to use this time of waiting for our children to process and prepare the change that is coming (thanks Jenny!). She said that pregnancy is a time of preparation - body, soul and spirit - for the child who is coming, and she encouraged me that this placement stage of our adoption process is that time of preparation for me, and I should make the most of it. So, this post is me sharing a bit of what I've been processing, emotionally and spiritually, in preparation for our kids.   

I heard this song "All of Me" by Matt Hammitt for the first time about a month ago, and I couldn't help but think how perfectly it expresses the love of a parent for a child. The words go like this:


Afraid to love, something that could break,
Could I move on, if You were torn away?
I'm so close to what I can't control
I can't give You half my heart, and pray He makes You whole

You're gonna have all of me, You're gonna have all of me,
Cuz you're worth every falling tear, You're worth facing every fear
You're gonna know all my love, even if it's not enough
Enough to mend our broken hearts, giving You all of me is where I'll start.

I won't let sadness steal You from my arms
I won't let pain keep you from my heart
I'll trade the fear of all that I could lose,
For every moment I'll share with You

You're gonna have all of me, you're gonna have all of me,
Cuz You're worth every falling tear, You're worth facing any fear
You're gonna know all my love, even if it's not enough
Enough to mend our broken hearts, giving You all of me is where I'll start.

Heaven brought you to this moment, it's too wonderful to speak
You're worth all of me, You're worth all of me
So let me recklessly love You, even if I bleed
You're worth all of me, You're worth all of me


As an expectant Mom, this song struck a chord in my heart, and really expresses well how I want to love our children. Back in February, I wrote a post called Fear Not where I shared about my fresh realization that fear and love cannot coexist. I was (and still am!) super convicted that I need to keep repenting of my sin of fear. Fear is what holds me back from truly loving, and I like how this song expresses that fight against fear... the fight to love. 

I have read quite a bit about the attachment issues that children in foster care have, and I am preparing myself for what could (and probably will) be a challenging transition - both for our kids and for us. There's so much that's out of my control in this whole process:
  1. I have no control over the issues in our kids' birth family that will ultimately lead them to us
  2. I have no control over the unique ways (healthy and unhealthy) that each of our children will have learned to cope with the pain they've been through in their young lives
  3. I have no control over the emotions that they will be dealing with inside
  4. I have no control over the behaviours that they will exhibit as a result of the trauma they've experienced
  5. I have no control over when they'll be placed in our home and if they will stay (beyond the 6 month to 1 year probation period) and be ours forever
And all of this can be kind of scary! 

Yet, that line in the bridge of Matt Hammit's song gets me every time: let me recklessly love you, even if I bleed. I can't help but think about Jesus on the cross whenever I hear/read that line! But the crazy thing about the love of God, displayed on the cross, is that He showed it in this way: while we were still sinners, He bled and died for us (Romans 5:8)! Did you catch that? Jesus recklessly loved SINNERS, bleeding and dying on the cross for them. So it was not because I was "worth it", or somehow deserving of love that Jesus died for me. I could never deserve or merit the love of the holy Creator of the world. In fact, my sin demands that I be punished. I myself have spit in the face of the One who made me and who holds everything together (Colossians 1:17). I have spurned His grace. Yet this God, in his inexplicable and amazing love, looked on my sin and said, "though she doesn't deserve it, I am going to love her to the point of shedding my blood. I will take the punishment that she rightfully deserves and make her mine." 

This is where the love of God blows even this song out of the water and takes it to a whole new level for me! Because I see that His love is so extravagant and logic-defying! It goes far beyond what is reasonable! 

I totally understand what the sentiment of this song is getting at, and I mean it when I sing it around the house, thinking about our kids, "you're worth all of me!" But underneath that line for me as I sing it is much more than the sentiment, "you're such a sweet little kid and you're worth all of me!" Much more. 1 John 4:10 and 19 say: In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the wrath-bearing-substitute for our sins... We love because He first loved us. God's love is the ultimate source and motivation for loving my children! 

So even if we lose them after committing to loving them, even if they act out and spurn our love, even if they have outrageous behaviour, even if they never love us back, "even if it's not enough", and "even if I bleed" like the song says, I'm still going to give them all of me and recklessly love them, because JESUS is worth it! He has poured out His unfathomable love in my heart by His Spirit (Romans 5:5), and I am privileged to give it away! 

 My prayer is that I will love our children like God loves me.... with a one-way, unconditional love. I hope that giving them "all of me" will image for them, in some small way, the amazing love of God the Heavenly Father, which is, as the Jesus Storybook Bible describes it, the ultimate "Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love" that we all desperately need. 


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