I have often heard that becoming a parent helps people to get
a better understanding of how God feels about us. I remember thinking that when
my niece was born. Even though she wasn’t my own child, the first time I saw
her I knew I loved her and I would do anything for her. She did nothing to
deserve my love , she didn’t even ask for it, but I loved her anyways. Evie
gave me a good picture of unconditional love, but this morning I was reminded
of another picture of unconditional love.
I work for a group home whose core values statement says the
following:
It is our core belief that all human life is intrinsically
valuable. The value of life is not diminished because a person is disabled,
unborn or near the end of life. Value is not determined by whether the person
is independent or totally dependent on others. It is not based on productivity
or on physical or intellectual potential or accomplishments. Value is not
dependent on whether a person has family relationships or friendships. It is
not contingent on being wanted, loved or admired. Human life is intrinsically
valuable and worthy of dignity and respect simply because it exists.
That statement gives me chills every time I read it.
There are two different types of houses in the company that
I work for: medically fragile and behavioral. I work in a behavioral house. One
of my ladies is mostly non-verbal and can get physically aggressive in the form
of hitting, scratching, biting, and kicking. She doesn’t have the words to communicate
what she wants, so that is her natural go to when something is bugging her. (If
I were to be honest, I think that would be my natural go-to as well, if I didn’t
have the reasoning or social constructs that keep me from kicking people when
they frustrate me. Trust me. I often would like to.)
But anyways, these types of behaviors are what we deal with
often. Not every day, but often enough. My staff bear the physical scars from
this job. They bear the emotional scars that come along with it too. How many
people stick with a job where they are in physical danger every day? Well, a lot actually. (Firemen, policemen,
soilders, etc.) How many twenty-something-year-old girls are in a job that they
are in physical danger every day? Not many.
But you know what’s awesome about our staff? THEY’VE STUCK
WITH IT.
Why? Why would they do that?
Unconditional love.
They get it. Only one of our staff is a parent. The other
fourteen of us have our ladies to teach
us about such things. It doesn’t matter what our residents do, we still love
them unconditionally. We still take care of them, still are involved in their
lives, still do the best we can to make their lives as happy and healthy as
possible. Partly because it is in our job description, partly because we know
them so well and care about them so much that it is no longer in our nature to
give them less than our best. Even if they are physically violent, or keep
saying the same thing over and over and driving us up the wall, we still love
them.
And we do so knowing that our love can never be reciprocated
in the same way. But we are not perfect in our unconditional love.
God’s love for me is perfectly unconditional. It is not
contingent on whether I do what I think he wants me to do, or behave how I
think I should. It’s not contingent on whether I go to church every Sunday or
help those less fortunate than I. It’s not contingent on whether I kick people
when I’m mad at them or just curse them out in my head. It’s not contingent on
whether I have my theology 100% correct or read my bible every day. It’s not
contingent on whether I do my job to the best of my abilities and get straight
As in school. It’s not contingent if I drink too much and make poor choices. It’s
not contingent on what I do at all. There is nothing I can do to make God love
me more or love me less. He just does.
Just like a parent loves their baby who does nothing for
them but keep them up during the night and make them bend to her every need.
Like a staff whose quality of care isn’t dependant on a
residents behavior.
I need to stop living like I can earn God’s love and start
living out of God’s love. I need to stop trying to prove that I’m worthy of it,
and instead live life knowing that I am unworthy of it but God lavishly pours
out his love on me anyways, and now I am to pour that love onto others.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and
whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that
God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In
this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought
to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God
abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”- 1 John 4:7-12
