Mommy, Did it Hurt to Fall In Love with Daddy?

Do you know that sound old wood floors make? The crackling sound joined with the pat and pitter of feet scurrying along lined wooden pieces. It’s one of the sweetest sounds I hear when my little one of four years runs down our hallway barefooted and free. He makes his way toward me and snuggles his brow up under my arm close nestled in my lap. He gazes upward into my eyes. We see so close to catch the apple or ‘little man’ of the eye in each other. He wears a shy tender countenance that tells me  he has something to say, something important to whisper to his Momma.

“What is it sweetheart?” I encourage his small voice. He looks down and then back up, “Mommy, did it hurt when you fell in love with Daddy?”

I grin with wonder at how this question came about.

Physically we didn’t fall - so no we did not find hurt that way, but did it hurt to fall in love?

The only honest way to answer was yes.

“Yes" (I pause).

"Yes, it did hurt to fall in love with Daddy.” The second question came naturally, “Well, why?”

I take a deep breath, I ponder a minute, then begin…

 “You know how sometimes Mommy raises her voice when you haven’t obeyed and how that is wrong and it hurts your heart when I do that.”

“Yes,” He understands.

 “And you know how much Mommy loves you and how I take care of you and spend special time with you every day?”
 “Yes,” This boy knows love for I see him love passionately.

“Well, you see that is how love can hurt. Mommy loves you and spends lots and lots of time with you but sometimes I can do things that hurt you too. So the same thing happened when Mommy and Daddy spent lots of special time together and got to know each other. We also did things that hurt each other. We still loved each other but we also hurt each other at times too.

He gently pushes back saying, ‘Oh’.
and skips off as if the world made complete sense all over again.

I’ve thought long about this question. I’ve thought about how loving God let in pain. How loving him along with trusting him bore unimaginable agony. When it crashed against unanswered questions. When it greeted me in the night with the missing of my sister and how I am supposed to understand his love for her... for me? How I am to gather this love well in my soul when the result of her life ended at age 24? 

 I sit with a pit in my stomach at the thought of her sufferings from hell as she wrestled the pitch blackness of suicidal depression.

God loves me still, right? God loved her, didn't he?

This pain that comes with the battle to believe, His love is unlike any type of hurt I’ve felt. God’s sovereignty: always a treasured comfort prior to this. Now it’s one of the most disturbing truths to welcome. I will not have answers. . I cannot handle understanding what God has meant to never be grasped by the human mind. Many of us have been here. I know this.

Then something happened that I know could only have been love. Love from Him.

I turned the question around.

“Did it hurt God to love me?”

The richest of pain came clinging with Jesus. His love for me drove Him toward His Gethsemane

and Calvary!

It only made sense that this same love accompanied with pain wasn’t just on the cross but that it had to of started in the beginning. I open up my boys Jesus Story Book Bible and see it written on the pages….

“You (Adam & Eve) will have to leave the garden now. God told his children, his eyes filling with tears. This is no longer your true home, it’s not the place for you anymore. But before they left the garden, God made clothes for his children, to cover them. …God loved his children too much to let the story end there. Even though he knew he would suffer, God had a plan – a magnificent dream. One day he would get his children back. One day, he would make the world their perfect home again. And one day, he would wipe away every tear from their eyes. …God would love his children with a Never stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love. And though they would forget him, and run from him, deep in their hearts, God’s children would miss him always, and long for him… Before they left the garden, God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: ‘It will not always be so! I will come to rescue you! And when I do, I’m going to do battle against the snake. I’ll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here. I’m coming back for you! And he would. One day, God himself would come.

Does it hurt to fall in love?...

Yes!

 For it hurt Him first to fall in love with us!

 

(c) Emily Murphy

Photographs are taken by me from the art illustrated by Jago in, The Jesus Story Book Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones