The Day Love Was Born

Yesterday was my older son Grant’s birthday. And for a selfish person such as myself, that marks the day when God truly began to teach me about love.

For a person like me, thoroughly consumed by self, holding that tiny baby in my arms twelve years ago meant the realization that I really do not matter. Looking into his deep eyes I knew that someone had finally arrived into my life that made me think of myself less. 

Somewhere between gently rubbing his cute and chubby, baby cheeks and changing his first diaper I found out what they mean when they say love is sacrifice. Watching him roll over for the first time, begin to play, take his first steps, get his first knee scrape, learn how to ride a bike (Gosh, was that frustrating), show his first signs of stubbornness and his knack for arguing I am learning what commitment is all about. Listening to his first words, seeing him coming to me for a hug, hearing him call me Mom, I have experienced the warm and fuzzy side of love.

The Holy Spirit is showing me every day through my sons what He means when he inspired Paul to says:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

The day love was born in my heart, the Lord began to show me how to disappear so He can truly and fully reign in my life.