A Mother's Love

1 John 4:7-10 KJV
7.  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8.  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9.  In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

There are very few people on this earth I would die for and none I'd give my sons' lives to save. That is the very honest, very blunt truth.  

I have often thought that the only love we can truly comprehend and compare to Christ's love is a mother's love.  And a mother's love is not something you can truly experience until you become a mother. I had no idea what my Momma felt each time she saw me hurt, sick, or afraid until my boys were born. Every tear, every skinned knee, every nightmare is felt to your core. Paranoid, overprotective, smothering...I may have been called these a time or 2 in my mission to keep them out of harm's way.  But it is an instinct you can't override.  It's there and you can't ignore it. I had no idea what my Momma felt when she saw my tears of joy, when she saw me succeed, when she saw me just plain ole' happy...until my boys were born. When my boys are happy, I am happy. When my boys are excited, I am excited.  I go out of my way to make them giggle because it is such a beautiful sound.  From the moment I knew they were growing in my womb they became my world.  I loved them.  Undeniably. Irrevocably.  Immeasurably. Not because they loved me, not because I deserved to be loved, but because they were mine, they were wanted, they were pure and perfect.  

As deep and profound as a mother's love is, Christ's is greater still.

God sent His one and only Son to pay our ransom.  His one and only Son came willingly to shed His blood for us.  Not because we loved Him, not because we deserved to be loved, but because we are His, we are wanted, we are washed as pure and perfectly white as the snow by His crimson blood.

I cannot comprehend how deep the Father's love for us is that he should give His only Son to die upon a cross for our sins.  I cannot comprehend Christ's love for us that He should willingly leave His throne in heaven to die upon a cross for our iniquities.  As a Momma I cannot fathom sending my sons to die for another's transgressions.  And yet I don't have to comprehend His love to receive it.  I must simply accept it.  God is love. And I know how very thankful I am that Christ came, died, and rose again.  I am saved by His mercy and grace and I know that because of His love that He will save my sons one day.  My duty as their Momma is to raise them in His will, to know Him and to love Him, so that when the Holy Ghost conviction falls upon them, that they'll not hesitate to surrender and accept Him as their Savior. And the assurance I have in my heart that He will save them is as strong as my mother's instinct to shield them from harm.

How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure.  That He should give His only Son, to make a wretch His treasure.