Sand Toys & the Garden of Eden When our first three children were little, it seemed that almost every Easter the bunny brought pails filled with sand toys and candy. It was not till those children got older that actual Easter baskets emerged.
Our #2 just turned 19 this March and coming up on Easter I asked if she wanted sand toys for Easter. It was a bit of wry humor as the day after Easter she was embarking to join her unit halfway around the world in that region of the ages now named Iraq.
It is this experience that has me pondering God's relationship to his creations. We were happy without children and in fact could have ventured through life childless and not been the type of people who go seeking to have children. God had other plans and we love being parents -- heartaches and all.
Nineteen years ago we had a little girl. She was in a hurry to be born. I was in labor for all of 38 minutes. We went from 0 to 60 in seconds. There she was this beautiful little thing. She would prove to be a child who would set her mind on something and not be distracted from it no matter how harmful it would be. As she hit her early teens she began to talk about how when she turned 18 she could do whatever she wanted and not follow anybody's rules. Well, try as we might, we could not dissuade her. She left home early and without a diploma or driver's license. She quickly learned that it was a rough go. We suggested the military for job training and hopefully a little maturity and experience gain. So, my heart aches as I watch her go into harm's way. So aware of the choices which will bring life and death and hoping upon hope that she will make the right choices and come home safe. Yet, as I pray, my thoughts go to the feelings of God . . .
There in that same fertile crescent, thousands of years ago, God created a beautiful woman. The Bible doesn't tell us how long that woman lived in the Garden of Eden, but God loved Adam and Eve whom He had created. He would come and walk and talk with them in the garden every evening. He wanted them to remain safe and alive. Eve, however, heard that she could do it her own way and do whatever she wanted and live by her own rules. So, she broke the rule of the Father, as did Adam. Thus did God send them out into that same area where my little girl is today. He knew they would have to make right choices to come home again. He provided the way, they would only have to chose to accept His Way and follow to arrive safely home and alive. The downside was the risk of death. How much did His heart ache?
So, I sit here typing these words and unlike my usual light hearted parables, I am wondering about God. All of Heaven rejoices when a sinner repents. All of Heaven rejoices when one of the lost is found. It makes me believe that even though God never needed us, that He loves us so much, that His heart aches for each of us as He waits for us to make the right choices so that we may come home.
Never before have I so understood the words of the Act of Contrition . . .
quote:
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins, because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offend You, my God, who are all-good and deserving of all my love.
How could I ever cause God such heart-ache by sinning? Oh my God, I am SO heartily sorry.
--- DEUS meus, ex toto corde amo Te super omnia, quia es infinite bonus et infinite amabilis; et ob amorem Tui proximum meum diligo sicut meipsum, eique, si quid in me offendit, ignosco.
That's a perspective which I sure didn't appriate until I was a parent: getting an idea how it feels when a child willfully ignores you, disobeys you, insists on doing something that you know will hurt them. As you say, it really gives you an immediate sense of what God must experience, as well as an awe of His patience...
But, on the positive side: it gives us a powerful first-hand realization (on the other end) of the Love that our parent showers on us, when we come running back to him and apologize, crying, with a skinned knee. ...
