I spent a good portion of August in Texas after the birth of my second grandchild—a boy! Aren’t those newborn feet precious?
Baby boy came a few weeks early so I changed my ticket, packed my bags, and headed to El Paso. By the time I arrived in Texas, he had not yet arrived. I picked my granddaughter up from the babysitter and headed to their apartment to unload. Penny and I grabbed dinner near the hospital hoping for a call announcing baby’s birth before the two year old’s bedtime. Serendipitously, the call came right as we finished dinner. “It’s a boy!” My daughter beamed over FaceTime as she held the babe in her arms.
“Penny, you have a baby brother! Let’s go to the hospital and see him.”
Penny’s looked downcast, “But I wanted a sister.”
Life lesson—we don’t always get what we want.
The first meeting between Penny and Ollie was not made for Instagram shares. Her indifference to this new human was evident. She hadn’t seen her parents in over 24 hours. She wanted mama.
Penny’s excitement for a sibling pre-birth faded to the reality that now must share her mama. The lap she enjoyed to herself now held a nursing infant. Her mom no longer served only her. Even with Nana around, and Papa following a few days later (a constant playmate), life had taken a nasty turn for this two year old.
Penny’s mom, our eldest child, felt the same way after the birth of her sister. We had a few breakdowns, tantrums, and all out fits. Every firstborn deals with it. Suddenly she must come to term with the fact that she is no longer mom and dad’s complete and only joy. It is split, shared, taken.
To a firstborn, the love she had to herself is now split. She thinks she gets less, as if sharing a cookie. She doesn’t realize the love of her parents is not limited. It did not split in half with the birth of her brother. It is not partial. Rather parental love expands. The capacity to love a second (or third or fourth) child simply grows with an addition of another child. It is an incredible human ability, this capacity to love.
This scenario is familiar to anyone who has had a second child or who has been a second child. A young child vies for the sole attention of their parent. The new sibling creates a situation they are not sure they can overcome.
As I spent time with this new family of four, cooking meals, cleaning the kitchen, snuggling a newborn, eating “soup” made in a two year old’s kitchen, I thought about this adjustment period in children. If parents do their job well, the child gets over it and recognizes there is more love to go around. It doesn’t take long.
I thought also about we as God’s children. We are often like a two year old with a new siblings when it comes to God. We are not sure God has enough love and goodness to go around. Is God limited in his love and goodness or infinite? How we see that affects how we see others.
I sang a song in childhood that had a line, “He owns a cattle on a thousand hills.” My brain always inverted the words to “He owns a thousand cattle on a hill.” The idea of the song was one of abundance, a poetic way of saying God owns it all. He is infinite, but I flipped it to sing about a limited God. He only owned one hill with a thousand head of cattle. That’s a nice herd, but not infinitely abundant.
When we see God as limited, we, like little Penny, aren’t sure we want other people around sharing his love, getting good things from him. We envy those who seem to have more, as if God’s cattle are about to run out, down to the 999th cow and there is only one for all the rest of us.
Of course, none of us say this out loud. It comes in subtle ways.
I find I don’t like a person. I’m not sure why, but “she just gets under my skin.” She seems to be winning in life—clothes, body, car, house, platform. So I hide her on Facebook. I can’t handle it and mute her life.
I’m not pointing fingers, simply looking at my own life.
There was the time I couldn’t handle a friend because I felt I was dressing in cast offs while she had all the latest designer fashions. We were both in ministry. We lived at two different levels. My envy was kept simmering inside me, until it bubbled out to a family member. Then I admitted my envy and got over it.
There was the time I could not read a friend’s brilliant writing because I wasn’t doing my own, and I hated it.
There was the time I didn’t want to hear of another’s pregnancy because infertility kept my womb bare. I thought I’d never have a child.
The list could go on and on. You get it.
This isn’t a woman issue. It’s a human issue.
Men do it too, whether with cars, “hot” wives (why do they need to objectify their wife for the public approval?!), bank accounts, or platforms.
I see it in ministry. I’ll use male pronouns, but it applies to women as equally as men.
Why does he get time on the platform, and I don’t?
Why has his book been published and mine is rejected?
Why do people love that staff pastor and don’t know my name?
Whether it is with possessions, relationships, abilities, or position, we judge God’s love and goodness when we compare our lives to another. We don’t recognize God’s rich mercy and goodness for all his children, so we envy. If God loved me as much as the other, shouldn’t I have all the good things too?
We fail to see God really does have it all. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. There is more than enough for everyone.
When we don’t believe God’s love is big enough, we lash out. We gossip. We slander. We diminish the other. We attack and do our part to take them down, and then we relish in their struggle.
All this shows we don’t know the love of our Father.
Most of us are familiar with John 3:16. For God so loved the world.
In 1 John 4:11 the writer uses the same phrasing but makes it personal. “For God so loved us.”
God loves us.
He loves each of us individually. He is a good parent whose love doesn’t split, it is not partial, rather it is completely expansive. His love is abundant and infinite for every one of us.
I’m astounded at God’s capacity to know the name of every single person on this planet and love and care for each one of us individually. His love is absolutely infinite and personal.
Understanding that changes my perspective. I don’t have to envy or worry what others have. God knows me and knows exactly where I’m at and what I need.
Likewise he knows you and knows exactly where you are and what you need.
It didn’t take long for Penny to realize her parents have abundant love for both her and her brother. And her attitude toward her baby brother changed. She adores him.
So with us. When we know God’s abundant love, it will change our hearts toward others.
How do you need to experience God’s love today?
How will understanding God’s infinite love help you to love others more fully?
So true, Nancy!
Thanks Nancy, for the lovely thoughts. And your sweet grandbabies. Our love is not divided in "half;" it is multiplied to include all. Love that about God.
Karen