Nearness to Delight

We loaded the soup I brought into the community fridge. Labeling the top with the patient name and room number. We plopped down on the vinyl couch in the family lounge. Like riding a bike, it sorta all comes back to me and feels familiar and comfortable. This time I am just a visitor to the Children’s hospital. Hoping to offer maybe a small ounce of nourishment or encouragement. I’m pretty sure I provide neither.

But I do know enough to know that we don’t visit the poor or the sick because we can offer them our sympathy and soup, but because, as Rachel Remen says, "the repository of this wisdom of how to live well are the sick people.” And so it was on this day.

I sat across from another Mom. Her baby in the room down the hall hooked up to all the beeping machines. Her life on hold. Each day’s happenings depend on the decisions of the rounding doctors each morning. This is a rhythm of life I am acquainted with. Watching your child struggle is a pain I feel particularly sympathetic to and the angst and brutality of it continues to make my knees weak.

So as we chatted quickly before her baby woke up, I recalled how God shook my own faith and revealed Himself to me in these very hallways. I came to know God in these hallways of suffering, a piece of His heart that I missed elsewhere. How He draws near to the brokenhearted, evidenced over time even in spite of not always feeling it in the moment. How I learned that I could not perform my way out of suffering. So accept it. I believe it’s true, and it’s always been a part of my story. The end.

But then she said, “Isn’t it weird that when we think of God’s love for us, we settle so quickly on God’s nearness to suffering. When you think of it as a parent, don’t we also so delight in our child’s happiness? In their joy? In their flourishing? Why don’t we ever picture God like that parent?”

I looked at her and paused. Head almost half-cocked. Staring into space in silence while it sunk in.

Right.

Why don’t we do that??

I can’t remember the last time I envisioned God’s stance toward me that way.

He is with me in my suffering. Yes. But does He desire goodness and delight and joy for me?

I don't know. How do I not know?

I can tell you as a Mom....

I do feel alive in my purpose when I can be near to my children in their suffering. When I was close enough that they could see me, steadying their fears, unmovable in my love and care for them.

And also….on Christmas morning. When I know that each package is filled with something they desired. Not something they needed for survival. Something I looked for and sacrificed for and got to wrap up for no other reason than for their delight. It was impractical, an extravagance that they did not earn, but is pure joy for ME when they open it. And also, on game day. When they explode out of the locker room with their friends, nearly incapable of hiding their smiles. They run up and down the court and hit the shot at the buzzer. Pure bliss. You could not pay me a million dollars to miss these moments. Their joy is my joy. Their smiles, their laughing, their delight…the very best days of my life.

I think I became so tunnel-focused as life handed me some challenging things. Some prolonged and repeated battles with suffering. My coping mechanism was to make peace with it. Life is suffering. See God in it. Check. Check.

I understood the assignment.

But I also missed it.

I missed the full picture of the Father’s love.

My love for my kids is both. Both tender and near to their pain and also desiring nothing more than their gladness.

Could it be so with the Father’s love toward me?

I will always show up in these hallways. Because He lives here. I do believe it.

Does He also live in the peace? In the joy? In the laughter? In the delight?

How did I miss this??