Extremely love-worthy!
I was sitting outside the other day in the sunshine. I was coming out of feeling blue… sunshine is wonderful for raising the spirits! Anyway, Jordan was in his pack n play outside and he was bored and wanted to get out. But I was resting, so he got to just stay in there a bit. I let the negative thoughts overwhelm me for a minute… they went something like, “He doesn’t know how to play, he doesn’t want to learn to play, he just wants to do the same things over and over and I don’t know if he will ever talk/play/etc.” I was frustrated and frustrated with myself for not trying harder to teach him… and disappointed in myself for being disappointed.
That’s where human thoughts take us sometimes.
Then a little light shone in on those shadowy thoughts. “Does what he will learn to do, matter, My child? Is his life’s success based on what he’s able to accomplish? Compared to Me, little one, even you cannot do or think or understand… and I love you more than you can comprehend.”
If my value can be made higher by what I can do, then my value can be made less by what I cannot do. Dare we value a person less because they are less beautiful, weaker, without understanding or social graces? Heaven forbid!
My son is beloved of his family. Tens of thousands of dollars and two trips halfway around the globe and back were far less than his value. He was shut away and lost to his family by birth right, because he has Down Syndrome – with the disabilities and differences that implies. But his abandonment did not make him less valuable. God created him and his eternal soul exactly how He intended to accomplish the purposes God has for him. And the same with you and me.
I recently had the honor of following a family’s story as they adopted a newborn son…. with a terminal illness. After nearly a year of loving their sweet baby boy, who was blind and unable to do most things, he has gone on home to heaven. And this family counted it a blessing to care for him in his suffering, to graft him into their family, and to value him in his infirmities.
If you google Brooke Greenburg, you will see a little girl… the size of a small toddler, who is 20 years old. She stopped aging. But her family values her as precious, just like the One who made her. Is being “normal” or exceeding normal expectations make us more valuable? No. Being gifted is wonderful and sharing our gifts with others desireable and loving completely is honorable. But none of us measure up to God, who created us each equal. Each beloved of him. Are babies less valuable than adults? Certainly not! (Put that way, are unborn babies less worth protecting than born babies?)
2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.†Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
I am not at all disappointed in Jordan. He is and will continue to be all that he can be and we will stand by him and love him and enjoy him. And our Savior is not at all disappointed in our feeble attempts to please him, despite our own incredible mental, emotional and physical handicaps, compared to Himself. He loves us exactly as He made us. And he is pleased with us. And He wants nothing more than to love us and be with us.
Psalm 127:3
Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Mark 10:14-15
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.â€
Imperfect, yet perfect.