Opportunities for Unconditional Love

I've heard it all my life.... about unconditional love.... about how parents love thier children with unconditional love... and how God loves His children with unconditional love. If you say it enough times, and hear it enough times, it really grows meaningless until something happens that makes you realize yeah - THAT is unconditional love.

We had "an incident" during the holidays. What seemed like a terrible disaster actually ended up being quite a learning experience and I think everyone involved walked away a better person.

I love my family - unconditionally. So I won't betray them here - not even to help get a point across. And actually, it isn't necessary because we ALL have experienced "an incident" that stretched us beyond our breaking point - so you can relate I'm sure.

But at the end of this incident I realized - if we don't have times in our lives where there is a disaster of sorts, then how will we ever show unconditional love?

Maybe it doesn't strike you like it did me but I have been mulling it over and over in my mind for a couple weeks now... and the same words keep coming back to me.... the shortcomings in our lives, the mistakes we make, the disasters we cause - they do not make us failures. They present opportunities for someone to show us unconditional love.

If my kids never let me down, I will never have the opportunity to show them unconditional love.

If they never experience that unconditional love, how will they ever truly know their worth in God's sight?

Suddenly their failures and faux pas' aren't so horrible.

And what is even more amazing is neither are mine.

Not because of who I am or what I've done but because of whose I am and what He did for all of us.