A few nights ago when I came home, I hung out downstairs with my sons. I get caught up in the rapture of their worlds from the moment I step foot in the door. I was excited to see them, kiss their faces, and relish the sounds of their laughter up close after spending some time away celebrating my birthday. It is a uniquely rewarding and affirming feeling to come home to the love of my children/family.
After catching up and getting some grub in their tummies, I began my journey upstairs toward the comfort of a hot shower. I climbed the stairs, turned the corner, and when I reached the end of the hall, I saw them. There was a vase filled with bright red baby roses. My heart melted and rejoiced. I about faced and yelled down, “You guys got me flowers?!” I imagine they could hear the smiles in my voice. I showered them with hugs and adoration and mentally marked the pinnacle of my 41st birthday celebration.
Birthday Flowers from My Boys
Their flowers spun me into a reflection. I love flowers, and I love my children, so you can imagine how special it was to receive their small token in recognition my birthday. It is among my greatest prayers and ambitions to love them wholeheartedly and then see them spill that love onto others. I want to know that the people I mothered are happy and selflessly create happiness for others. In part because I want them to be light and warmth in our world and also because it has become second nature to them or a reflection of the love they know/learned from their upbringing.
The flowers represented an affirmation of this desire becoming real. As I thought about these desires for them, it brought me to reflection about God’s desires for me as his beloved child. Without a doubt, becoming a parent gave me the clearest revelation of God’s love for us as His children. It helped me understand in a very real way what it meant to sacrifice one’s only son and digest the meaning of love as it is defined in God’s word. It brought me to a place of immense gratitude for the years I have spent in fellowship with Him and the progress he has enabled me to experience along the journey thus far.
Where/who would I be without the love and mercy of God? I can’t answer because I honestly don’t think I would be alive. His love has sustained and carried me through my greatest triumphs and my deepest sorrows. I know for sure that I have made mistakes along the way. Still it is a blessing to have the ability to recognize when I am in error and then consider the eyes/heart of God. Because of Him, I don’t have to dwell in guilt and condemnation because I have access to His unlimited forgiveness. For His word assures me that NOTHING can separate me from his love…much like I can say with all reassurance to any one of my children that I will always love them.
But in this past season of my life, I wasn’t living in that love. Instead I had fallen into a rut of self-deprecation, subconsciously cursing myself and rejecting God’s everlasting love and forgiveness. Frozen in the depths of my fears, my tears, and my pain, I was disqualifying myself from worthiness. I was was buying into the notion that love was not for me when love, real love, is the anecdote. The Disney movie Frozen captures this well. It was love that stopped the eternal winter, but it took time, agony, and self-inflicted obstacles to realize this.
So at 41, I am resting my case against Garland, against love. How can I so quickly “forgive” others while secretly harboring unforgiveness against myself. I was blaming myself for the things I “allowed” to happen or the things I didn’t get right. I wasn’t giving myself permission to be human. But Alas, I can’t be pitiful and powerful at the same time. Those are words I frequently say and yet I was not applying them to myself. Why was I foolish enough to believe that I could tear myself down and build myself at the same time? I was in denial about the bitterness overtaking me inside. I am officially surrendering the things that did not turn out the way I planned. I am letting go and giving it all to God. It was holding me down/back and almost caused me to self-destruct.
I am embracing love and trusting the God who has loved me so faithfully and has promised me hope and a future. Nothing that I have been through in my past exempts me from being used of God. Nothing in my past will prevent me from walking in purpose and in love. Nothing that I have endured exempts me from worthiness and happiness. God is a father. My love for my natural children can’t compare/compete with the love He has for his children. Just as I love, cover, and bless my children come what may. Just as I look at them with fond admiration in the midst of any/all wrong doing, I must accept that God has even greater love for me. He is not despising His own creation.
Thank you Lord for 41 years of failing forward. Thank you Lord for putting me on a path to healing. Thank you Lord for taking my eyes off of my shortcomings and resting them on your grace, reminding me that I am your favored daughter who can delight herself in her father’s glory and consequently receive every desire of her heart.
Keeping it real, true, and free,
Garland Darling
