My head drops and my heart aches as I gaze at the familiar sight of my children doing horribly mean things to one another- kicking, punching, yelling.
Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, James and John all paved the way through this murky forest of sibling rivalry. And that is small comfort to a mama’s heart.
I write it on chalkboard walls and I say it so many times I have memorized it:
“We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
-1 John 4:19-21
I hope that they figure it out while the flow of forgiveness is still easy. Young children find mercy for others easily, and it is pride that keeps us big people from forgiving others and ourselves. Guilt does not claw its way into a child’s heart and cling to the will like it does to in a mature and broken heart.
I don’t hear much about regret from my children. They don’t lament the past with a “should have” or a “could have” when they have erred and harmed someone they love.
I look at Valentine’s Day hearts and bags and smiles full of chocolate and I pray they swallow God’s love down into their hearts like they swallow chocolate truffles.
These beautiful children of mine look at each other and find love does not come easily. But Jesus, whom we can’t see is full of love for us, and I know they need him so much more than they realize.
I clean up chocolate wrappers and wonder what I “could have”, “should have” done better to lead them to love for oner another. A mother’s guilt is not always easily prayed away.
‘Could have” and “should have” presses guilt up into my throat and I think how guilt is a thief.
Guilt is a robber, and it steals the glory that God can bring to our lives.
If our “could have” or “should have” was enough to make everything work out perfectly, then who needs a savior with redemptive love that makes even the ashes we have burnt with our sinful fire into a beautiful Kingdom of glory?
I hold the hands that grew inside my belly so many years ago, I see the lines that He drew into palms that I cradle in my own.
These hands of my son have been the hands of God’s love in my own life. God has molded my own soul as I have steadied small hands learning to live.
I break up another fight and see that glory comes when sin flames with wickedness from our hearts to our hands and we seek His face, cry out for His grace, and forgive as He has forgiven.
We love because He first loved us, and there is no space for guilt in the shadow of His cross.
There is nothing we could have or should have done, only what we ought to do now, and that is simply to embrace His love.
So so good