A Love Renewed
I GOT the call at 3:00 A.M. My daughter was taking her one-year-old son, Justin, to the emergency room. His raging fever had turned to hysteria, and he was screaming uncontrollably.
As I raced to the hospital, my drowsy mind filled with fearful thoughts of dreaded childhood diseases.
I had regularly confronted such fears while raising my own children, and now I did so again with the first of my grandchildren. My love and concern for this little guy were so intense that I couldn’t imagine my feelings could be any stronger.
I finally pulled into the hospital parking lot and dashed inside. There stood my daughter, Justin draped over her shoulder like a worn-out rag doll.
He saw me and reached out for me. I lifted him onto my own shoulder. The smell of fever and heat from his little body brought tears to my eyes.
Antibiotics soothed Justin’s infected ears and restored calm to a frazzled family, but as I drove back home, I thought about the pain involved in loving anyone deeply.
I would gladly suffer for Justin, but would I allow him to suffer for anyone else? Never! My love for him is so great that I could never allow this.
As the streetlights sped by my window in the morning darkness, the words of John 3:16 came to mind: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. . . .”
These are the words children learn in their earliest Sunday school lessons. These are the words sin-sick sinners hear at Billy Graham’s crusades.
These are the words I myself have turned to for comfort so many times.
Millions of Christians can recite these words from memory, but has such familiarity bred indifference? Have we grown complacent about God’s revolutionary good news?
“For God so loved the world” is more than six words in a book. It’s an earthquake shaking our foundations. It’s a reminder that God loves us more than I love my grandson.
Such love is incomprehensible. It’s like a fish trying to grasp the concept of water.
But if we are willing to take an occasional break from life’s incessant busyness, words grown dull with familiarity can become living truths once again.
For me, it was an early morning drive to the hospital that renewed my spiritual passion. For you, perhaps something less dismaying can shed new light on old truths.
Thank you, God, for loving this world and everyone in it, including me. I don’t always understand such love, but helps me to experience it in my life.