Learning while Teaching

500 Words Per Day: Being Loved (without conditions)

It's pretty sad when I read more about unconditional love from an author who makes no faith claims whatsoever than I do in books by authors whose sole purpose is to tell their readers about God's unconditional love. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I needed to read it some place else in order for it to really cut me deep.

So I was laying bed last night--rather, this morning between the hours of 2:30 AM and 4:30 AM--utterly unable to sleep. I kept tossing and turning, flipping and flopping, changing positions, sighing and groaning, praying and gasping--I just could not figure out what was going on and why mind would not just shut down for a few minutes so I could catch the sleep so fleetingly eluding me. It was that book the Myth of the Spoiled Child and the word 'unconditional' that kept stretching my eyes, pounding my heart, and infuriating my mind. It wouldn't leave me alone.

I do not lay claim to having many, if any, of those particularly queer moments when God speaks directly to us with words, dreams, or pictures, but I think last night that's exactly what happened. Here are a few of the sentences that kept dragging me down:

Children don't just need to be loved; they need to know that nothing they do will change the fact that they're loved. They require reassurance that their 'lovability' isn't in question, which is another way of talking about self-esteem. By contrast, on conservative critic of self-esteem not only complains about 'unearned praise' for children but expresses distaste for how 'today's parents' are like to express 'enthusiasm for their children's very existence.' (Kohn, 136)

Unconditional love corresponds to one of the deepest longings, not only of the child, but of every human being; on the other hand, to be loved because of one's merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt; maybe I did not please the person I want to love me, maybe this, or that--there is always a fear that love could disappear. Furthermore, 'deserved' love easily leaves a bitter feeling that one is not loved for oneself, that one is loved only because one pleases, that one is, in the last analysis, not love at all but used. (Erich Fromm, as quoted by Kohn, p 136-137.)

This is why I was awake all night, but not just this. This of itself merely tickles me. It doesn't leave me so speechless as when I read this and remember what the Bible says about the way God loves us.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

...nothing...in all creation will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39)

Here's what kept me awake: I suddenly realized that God does, in fact, love me unconditionally. I had an epiphany of His love: I did nothing to earn it and can do nothing to lose it.

500 Words Per Day: Thinking about Life in General

I've been having a lot of thoughts lately about a great many things. Some things too lofty for me to think of (like God's great grace) and other things maybe a bit too mundane (like the bother of having my oil changed in my car.) It's all rather fascinating the amount of energy that goes into either one. Like when I read the other day that Tim Keller said something like, "God's grace means it's OK that we're not all OK." Or something like that. Or like today when I was sitting at Valvoline and I asked the attendant how much the oil change would cost and I blacked out after the first 3 minutes of her speech. Seriously, all I wanted was an oil change.

I took a slow drive today from my home to the home of another. I took it slow and enjoyed the music, the conversation, and the view. It's still quite brown and dreary all around, but I sense that there is a springtime about to break loose on us all. It's like my niece who is learning to make sounds with her lips, tongue, and throat. She babbles and coos and makes a raspberry sound with her lips. What will happen is that we will not really notice her learning to speak until she actually speaks and we will be like, "Where did that come from?"

So it will be with springtime...slowly the trees will begin to break forth in green...slowly the grass will turn from yellow/brown to green...slowly the temperature will turn from miserable to 'the furnace isn't running anymore' and we will be like "Where did that come from?" All I can hope for is that I can slow down enough to notice the gradual changes that take place on the earth. I have gone through massive, monumental changes in the last 4 years, but as I sit here now all I can think about is how quickly those four years went by and how little I remember of the gradual changes I underwent that have culminated in the person I am now.

None of us just happen. We are at any moment the culmination of all the years, months, days, minutes and seconds that we have traveled through. We are a collection of thoughts--heavenly and mundane--and ideas and ambitions--some of which failed and others of which have succeeded. Whatever the case, here we are. We are hopeful and dreamy and worshipful and angry and sad and happy and bent of revenge and seeking forgiveness all at once, every day and every night. It never stops; it never relents.

I am constantly nagged by the thought that God pays attention to all of this. For some reason he is interested in who we are--not merely because he made us, but worse, I suspect, because he really does love us. "What is man that you are mindful of him?" the Psalmist asked.

Father, I had my oil changed today. My heart's next.

 

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