All of Me. This is what parenting requires, especially when you are parenting a child with pain, wounds and hurts in their past.
As an adoptee growing up, I longed to know All of Me. As a mom of 5 kids I wonder many days how I can give them All of Me amidst the challenge of balancing nurture and structure. Yet I know that they need All of Me. They require All of Me. God calls me to give them All of Me.
Matt Hammitt wrote a song called All of Me. He states…
“It’s about recklessly loving in spite of our fears, even if it means we’re going to bleed or we’re going to be broken.”
As an adoptive parent I’m hoping and praying that my children will come to love me, if even just a little, in spite of their fears. In spite of the ugly hold that abandonment has on them. In spite of the anger towards others that they have. In spite of the grieving they are going through in losing their birth parents. In spite of their broken hearts.
It’s becoming more evident that being a mom of children, birth or adopted, requires me to recklessly love them in spite of their fears. In spite of my own fears. In spite of their past. In spite of my past. In spite of their sin. In spite of my sin. There are days that I bleed tears over their wounds and days that I am completely broken by how little of me I was able to give them.
What does it look like as a mom to give my children All of Me? Is it even possible to give it to them? I know what giving all of my money looks like. I know what giving all of my possessions away looks like. I know what giving a piece of me looks like. Honestly, it’s scary to think about what giving All of Me might look like.
Why? Because All of Me is messy. All of Me is imperfect. All of Me is selfish. All of Me means nothing left tucked safely away from the tainted world of sin. All of Me means giving everything. All of Me means giving up control and my plans.
As I wrestle to bring this into perspective of what my Heavenly Father has done for me, I am left with inspiration of unconditional love, a perfect parent example, selflessness in laying down one’s life for others, forgiveness seventy times seven, and assurance that He will never leave me nor forsake me. How do I argue with that? How do I run away from that? How can I deny that? How can I be that?
I simply can’t. I can only grasp the reality of a Perfect Father loving an imperfect child. As an imperfect child I can only in turn attempt my very best each day to love each of my amazing, perfectly unique, undeniable beautiful, imperfect children in the best way I am able relying on the fact that He is the ONLY Perfect One.{Sigh of relief}
You see giving All of Me to my children is done by giving All of Me to my Savior. And He accepts me even when I’m not whole because He is what makes me whole. He is the ALL in me and allows me to give All of Me to my children.
How about you? How do you give all of yourself to God? What do you still have left to give Him?
