"Why do you love me, Mama?"
Asked not in simple curiousity, but out of desperation, and a true lack of understanding as to why someone could...would...love him. After all, everyone else had abandoned him.
Those who said they loved...left.
And he is left struggling to understand how it is that someone who didn't know him, now loves him.
How do I answer that question?
To some extent I understand. I have dealt with feelings of loss and abandonment for most of my life. They threatened the early years of our marriage as I could not shake the feeling that Mark would leave. Recent events in my family once again caused me to question how and why love is.
I don't know, Alex. I don't know why I love you. I don't know why others didn't love you, or why they did things that made you think they don't love you.
But here and now, I love you. You are my son. And I will choose to love you for the rest of my life.
6 comments:
"I love you because you are mine and I am yours and God put us together as mama and son. He knew what He was doing and I think he did a pretty good job."
I think your last line is it. "I will choose to love you for the rest of my life. "Love" is a word that gets tossed around way too much and loses meaning because of that tossing around. I love watermelon; I love sporty cars; I love the color green...I love you - how do they even compare? I don't think love is really a thing to have or to achieve, but it is a thing to work at and a thing that grows - hand in hand with joy and happiness. A good friend of mine, however, told me to never rationalize with a child. I've found that to be good advice over the years. For a child, love is pretty practical - I love you because I do; because you are nice and funny and helpful and because I can help you and that makes me feel warm and good and happy and love. Now, it can only get better and nothing can change it, not even bad behavior. But, man, was that ever a heavy question to come out of a child.
My favorite answer to that one is "I love you because you exist. Nothing you can do or say will ever change that." When he asks "but why?", the only true answer is "because I do." This would be a good opportunity to explain agape love. You don't do anything to deserve it, so you can't do anything to lose it. It's exactly how God loves us! Good luck, and I will keep praying for you guys!!
Awww. Praise the Lord that he has you and you have him. How are the girls adjusting? Lord bless you!
My answer was similar to yours, Diana. But it doesn't get at the heart of the issue. He was someone else's son before--he had a mama. And she left. So do mamas really love their sons because they are their sons?
They are doing great, Luba! I will post on update on them soon. :)
Post a Comment