By Andrea Goebel
God’s Way
The joy of an infant is contagious. Every time I hear my littlest one laugh or squeal, every time his bright blue eyes light up in delight, and every time he grins at me, I cannot help but smile. I love to pick him up, kiss his cheeks and snuggle him close. And I think to myself how easy he is to love.
When he’s crying uncontrollably at bedtime or in the middle of the night, and I’m tired and impatient, my feelings are more begrudging. I still hold him close and cuddle him, but sometimes, when I want to set him down and leave the room, I have to consciously tell myself that he just needs to be held and loved.
When I inadvertently hurt my older children’s feelings and they scream and stomp around, telling me how much they don’t like me and that they never want to play with me again, sometimes, I want to do nothing more than yell back, dole out a punishment, and command them to stay out of my sight for the immediate future.
Instead, I try my best to remain calm. I don’t always do this, and sometimes, I act out of my own hurt. But when I dig deep, something I learned a few years ago helps me to act out of compassion, not anger, in moments like these. People need to be loved the most when they act the most unlovable.
Of all the commandments, Jesus says these are the greatest: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that our loved ones are our neighbors, and it’s our job to treat them how we want to be treated ourselves. When their hurt emerges as anger, when they make choices we don’t agree with, or when they are just having a bad day, we can still show them kindness, compassion and understanding.
The same is true for ourselves. When circumstances don’t turn out the way we wanted and we take our anger out on God, when we make sinful choices that lead us away from him, and even on days when it feels like we just keep messing up, we might be tempted to feel unworthy of his love. That’s when we need to accept his love the most, and that’s when we need to show ourselves the same kindness, compassion and understanding that he wants us to show to each other.
It starts with following the first and greatest commandment: loving God with all we are. When we love God first and foremost, nothing remains between him and us. Our hearts are free to love ourselves and others freely, as he loves us, and as he created us to do.
God is love, and he doesn’t stop loving us even when we mess up, even when the outside world may say we are unworthy of being loved. We are always worthy of God’s love, and we should always treat all of his children with that love.
I am learning that the more kindness, compassion and understanding I show myself, the more I show it to others. And the more I show it to others, the more they show it in return to me.
One morning, on the drive to school after a particularly stressful morning of getting ready, I apologized to my kids.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t my best Mommy-self this morning.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry, too.”
My son and daughter apologized to me and each other, and we continued the ride with lighter hearts.
Together, we are learning to forgive each other and love each other despite our mistakes. And we are learning that when we show this Christ-like love to each other, we are living as God has called us to do.