Relentless Love

I'm sitting downstairs at naptime listening to my child scream as if she's actually being torn limb for limb, knowing she is unleashing her full measure of rage on the man that I love. I can hear the play by play in my head, knowing I'll find my phone later with messages containing the graphic details of her fury, messages sent from the toddler trenches where a very strong Daddy is rendered speechless by the sight of his beautiful Baby Daughter seemingly losing her mind. 

There is thrashing and screeching and biting and clawing and kicking and flailing and grunting and crying... all soundness of mind is consumed by violence because Mommy and Daddy decided that this time it wouldn't be loving, it wouldn't be safe, to give her what she wants. And I wouldn't really blame the landlord below us for calling the cops because it really does sound like we're torturing her (her poor shaken Daddy might find the irony of this amusing in the aftermath).

The trouble is that this tiny little human, the one I love dearly, the only one I've ever watched grow from a soft swaddled seedling - I know it for a fact: she is sane. Intelligent even. She is healthy and funny and clever and developing beautifully.

But it is there- a sudden outpouring of deep.  raw. unquenchable. (even) pure. violence. 

The truth of it is troubling. It's ugly and offensive, and there's a piece of me that doesn't want to talk about it, wants to clean it up or dress it up or make it do a little song and dance that looks like obedience and makes me feel like a good mother. A mother whose child is just "naturally" peaceful, agreeable- "easy." But that's the thing. It is true. She is human. She is like me. And I am like her. I know too well the burning that sits in my chest, the filling sense of injustice that builds slowly always threatening to choke out my joy. I know too well that when I don't get what I want my flesh throws a fit, calls my Papa God names, withholds my trust and love from Him, tries to hurt Him. WE are the violent ones. 

Bless his heart though, my daughter's Daddy, he's in that room. With her in the midst of it. Refusing to leave her alone with her demons. Fighting for her heart amid the flying fists and gritted teeth. 

So I sit a room away, and pray that his love would be truly relentless. 

That he would choose to pursue his girl in the face of bodily harm and heart-aimed injury. That he would keep reaching for her, keep his heart turned toward her. That he would find her in the mire.

This is Love. 

Love in Person.
The God-Man who slipped silently into this broken violent world to find his own, knowing full well that it would kill Him to do it. That they would kill him.

Relentless Love embraces the violent ones, He embraces our ugliness (as only the One who made a life can),

fearlessly, because His love is strong enough to bear the weight of ALL that we are. 

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hope all things, endures all things." 

(1 Corinthians 13:7)

Oh Abba! that I would know more of You, that I would love like You love!!