Day 481 - October 9 - Me vs. God

God always sees the long-term, doesn't He?

I had started blogging this morning with the thought that I had no clue what to write about. Mid-sentence, however, I had to interrupt myself to take care of some things with Connor, and now that I'm back at the computer I started over because now I have something to write about! And that something is the difference between my love for my children, and God's love for His.

I love my kids. I want the best for them. I sacrifice for them. I try to guide them in the way they should go. If I could take the hard things they go through from them, I'd do it in a heartbeat. So far, so good. All those things also describe how God loves us.

But...

When I was in Connor's room, I saw that his head was tilted kind of crooked on his pillow, in a fashion that made me think "Gee, that looks uncomfortable". So I asked him if he was comfortable, and he said "yes". So, I left him the way he was.

Pretty innocuous, right? Not really. You see, with this situation, one little thing usually leads to two or three others. Readjusting his head and neck could have woken him up (it's about 0645) when he doesn't want to be awakened. He's not usually cheerful in that situation. Moving him around when he's been sleeping in one position for a while often leads to other discomforts for him. And all of these also take time to deal with. So, rather than A) making him uncomfortable, B) facing his ire, and C) taking the time to deal with it all, I opted to justify leaving him be and not adjusting his head, and I scurried out of the room without disturbing him. Even though I think that the boy will probably have a neck ache later when he wakes up. I opted to trade a bit of discomfort and inconvenience now for the probability of greater discomfort (that somebody else could deal with, incidentally) later.

That's what I meant about God looking at the long-term. He doesn't hesitate to do really uncomfortable things to those He loves, and for most of the last 481 days I've been grumbling about "why". And the answer isn't "because He loves us", although that's true. The answer is "because He loves us, knows what the long-term result is, and is willing to do uncomfortable things now to His loved ones in order to bring about the better things later". And that highlights the difference between me and God. He's willing to sacrifice now for a better "later", while I'd rather not deal with the unpleasant now and hope that it somehow becomes alright later on. Which doesn't sound very much like "love", does it? It sounds a lot more like "selfish".

So I've concluded that I don't stack up very good next to God, which really shouldn't come as much of a surprise to you. Or me, for that matter! But at least I just went back in and took care of Connor's neck, and what do you know - it worked out fine and now he's more comfortable than he was. Funny how these things work out...

I'm exceedingly thankful that God has a plan in all this, and that His plan is good, and that His plan will result in a better outcome for Connor, for our family, for you, and for everyone it touches than the plan that would have unfolded if Connor had never gone to camp last summer.

I'm gonna try not to grumble so much in future about getting my head readjusted...

E.

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