December 15th - expansive love

I was talking to a pregnant lady the other day.  She was expecting her first baby and we got chatting about how amazing it is to have that life inside you and how nothing can prepare you for how much you love it once it's born.   I went on to say that I remember being a little bit .... sceptical when I was pregnant with my second and everyone told me that I would love him every bit as much as I had loved Sam, our first.   I knew it was true, because everyone told me it was true.  But my brain just could not understand how the tidal wave of adoration and commitment and wonder and love that I felt the moment I heard Sam cry could possibly be replicated or shared or expanded to include another baby.

Of course when Josh was born I discovered that somehow, and I really do believe its a miracle, I was able to love him every bit as much as I loved Sam and yet my love for Sam was undiminished.

So how does that happen then?  How can you love someone with your whole heart, and then someone else comes along and you can love them with your whole heart too?  It really is a mystery and I was pondering it today and here is what I concluded.

When God made Adam He loved him with His whole heart in exactly the way any of us love our firstborn.  And then when He created Eve He loved her equally and His capacity for loving expanded.  Every person who has ever been conceived has been loved in that same way by God - His capacity for loving has expanded with each human being born on earth.   Which some experts estimate to be 108 billion people.   Can you imagine, as a parent, loving 108 billion kids with the same passion and dedication and intensity that you love your own ( if you have them)?  Of course you can't imagine it - it's impossible.   But God 's heart of love is big enough to love every person who has ever lived and ever will, with the same fierce passion that He loved Adam and Jesus and David.    For some reason, thinking about this today has helped me glimpse a new facet of the love God has for us.  I hope you can glimpse it too.