I was six years old when I met my dad for the first time. My mom and my biological father had divorced a few years prior and this man, this brave, amazing man, began dating my mom…and her 5 kids! My mom and I were on our way to see The Nutcracker Ballet for my birthday and it was pouring rain. Halfway there we got a flat tire and my mom called the only person in her life that she trusted at the time, my future dad. I remember sitting in the car, not fully aware of what was happening while he was fixing the flat. Gently he opened the door next to me, he was soaked from the rain falling all around him. With a look of kindness I had not yet experienced in my life he smiled and simply said “Everything is going to be ok, have fun tonight baby girl”. Then he closed the door and disappeared into the night. He was a big burly man with a scruffy beard and rough hands but somehow he instantly made me feel safe and cared for.
There is something about instant and unconditional love that is both incredibly comforting and yet oddly a little disarming as well. We live in a world full of “conditions” that need to be met; degrees that need to be acquired before we get the job, skills we need to display before we can make the next big sports team, behaviors we need to exhibit before we can be accepted into a friend group. Our lives have become so conditioned that anything unconditional doesn’t feel real..like we haven’t earned it. But God’s love for us is instant and unconditional. As God walked alongside His chosen people the Israelites in the desert He displayed over and over again his compassion and love for them. In their humanness they failed Him; grumbling and complaining longing for slavery in Egypt rather than listlessness in the desert, worshiping idols instead of the God who rescued them, and complaining about their constant source of food as it sustained their lives in a lifeless place. Frustrated with them, no doubt, God never left them. Instead He forgave them and humbled them and continued to fulfill His promises to them. Just as we struggle now, the Israelites struggled to understand this type of love. Sure, they were protected from the awful plagues, walked right through the center of the Red Sea and followed pillars of fire and cloud through uncertain terrain but they still couldn’t fathom the idea that God loved them unconditionally. Today’s plagues and Red Sea adventures may not be as obvious or profound as they were in the time of the Israelites but they do still exist. God has carried me through unimaginable situations and freed me from more Egypt-like bondages than I can count. And like the Israelites in the midst of the struggle, I too forgot to see the God that loved me as He carried me through. For most of my life I felt unworthy of God’s love and hid from it in many of the same ways the Israelites did. Through it all God’s love has remained constant; it has endured through every challenge I have experienced. It is unconditional, unending and sacrificial and it is the most precious gift we can receive in this life.
My dad didn’t have to love me, he didn’t have to rescue me that night (and so many days and nights thereafter) but he did and he did so without a single condition or string attached. It is because of his love that I was able to eventually understand the love God had for me as well. Today on Valentine’s Day, as you focus on the power of love, may you be reminded that you have been given the gift of unconditional love since you took your very first breath. No matter who your Valentine is today take comfort in knowing you are deeply and compassionately loved by a God who will never leave you. Be blessed Friends…happy Valentine’s Day!
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10