A Constant Kind of Love

A very goofy angel

It took parenthood to awaken me to the fragility of life. 

These days, as I make my way through the world, fearful thoughts dart through my mind: 

“What if that car, racing the red, hit me? I’d be brain-damaged, mangled. Would my daughter recognize me? When they wheeled me out of surgery would her face still crest like the sun at the sight of me? Or would she not know me at all?” 

I imagine her life without her mother and my eyes well with a flurry of tears.

In other moments, I think:

“What if something happened to my little girl? What if she had a life-threatening disease, her body shrunken to a mere few pounds as she fought for life? How would I cope with feeding tubes being laced down her throat? Would I crumble like paper or would I rise up, warring in the fight?”

I find my lips whispering prayers of thanks for life, every day. It’s a new posture for me. For most of my life I have taken life for granted. It was given. I am living it. But now, with a small life entrusted into my faulty hands, I tread lightly. I am mindful. I want to drive slower, look both ways, meander more, notice. 

It’s the way God sees, I think. He watches this spinning globe He made and hones in on a delightful little boy kicking soccer balls in Argentina. He smiles. Delights in this young child, destined for a profession in plumbing, fatherhood, public service. He sees the fullness of a life unfolding beneath dusty feet.

God is a God of love, the Bible tells us over and over. 

Psalm 33:18 reads: “The Lord watches over those who obey him, those who trust in his constant love.” 

How would our lives look differently if we believed it?

I’d be much less fearful, I think.