Bigger Picture Moment: To Love Like Him

Photo credit: Biscarotte

I fill this space with flowery words and grace-filled truths. I speak of His love and the work He continues to do in me. I write of struggles, but always find my way back to the bigger picture.

But the truth is, sometimes I don't always find that bigger picture.  Sometimes I am stuck in that anxious thought, that foul mood, that I'm-so-exhausted-I-could-cry state.

I'm not perfect and I don't claim to be.  I don't know all the answers and I don't have it all together. 

Sometimes I cry and I pout and I whine.  I don't want to get out of bed for the millionth time and direct a sleepy toddler back to his own bed.  I don't want to wake up before the sun comes up listening to a little one demand food before my eyes even adjust to the morning.

I hear my children whining for the seventieth time that day and I snap.  I say words I don't mean to say and I break little hearts with my words spoken in anger.  I know He calls me to forgive seventy times seven times, but sometimes I've just had enough.  

I read His words about how love is patient and love is kind and love forgives all wrongs.  The more I read, the more I ache, because I know how often I fall short.  I am impatient and unkind.  I hold grudges and wallow in my anger.

His love suffered long, carrying a heavy, blood-stained cross to His death, bearing the weight of the world's sins on His soul.  He is the greatest example of love, the kind of love we are called to emulate.  But how? 

I stumble and I crumble and I fall, time and time again.  I know myself too well.  

"I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children."  (1 Corinthians 4:14)

His words convict, but His words also change hearts and forgive grievances.  He is patient with me, suffering long just to hear me say, time and time again, "Forgive me, Father...for I have sinned."

He knows my faults and my mess...but He also knows my heart.  He knows how I long for Him and how, no matter how much I fail, I keep running to Him with a repentant heart.

No matter how many times I fall short, He forgives and remembers no more.

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."  (Psalm 32:1)

I kneel down, searching the tear-filled eyes of a little one, wiping away the pain caused by hurt filled words.  "I'm sorry, dear one...mommy shouldn't have said that.  Will you forgive me?"

Looking deep into my eyes, a little one forgives and forgets, more easily than I ever could.  And in that moment I understand what He meant when He said we must first have the faith of a child before we can enter into His arms.  Perhaps that is exactly what it means to love like Him.

Linking up with Alita for this week's Bigger Picture Moments.