Grandparents

Over the past four weekends, we have hosted grandparents for three of them. Let’s just say that I’m tired of driving to Amarillo and am ready to deflate our blow up mattress that has overtaken our spare room for the past month. And while I am glad to have my house back, I do enjoy being able to see grandparents interact with their granddaughter.

We get to see her everyday, and experience the little changes and the cute moments. But because God has called us to live where we are, that means that our families do not get to spend the same kind of time with our little girl. And so we have a very “open door” policy when it comes to visiting family, because we know what it means to them.

I think that watching my daughter’s grandparents has given me a new perspective on God. As a parent, I understand the unconditional love of God a little more, but I also clearly remember the time I had to clean up the coffee that she knocked out of my hand. There is a level of frustration and sin on my part that I do not observe when the grandparents come. For them, everything is wonderful, they are just happy to spend time with our little angel. When God washes away our sin, I think He looks at us more like a grandparent than like a parent. All the things we have done are so insignificant compared to the chance just to spend time with us. I can’t imagine that God would love me that way, but He does. God hates our sin, of course, just as the grandparents do. But just like grandparents, God not only wipes that sin from our eternal situation, but also from the ins and outs of our everyday relationship, as if I had never fallen short and was the only thing that matters to Him in all the universe.