Children of God | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Children of God | Previous Challenge Entry
By Chandra Christie
08/05/23
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“Oh, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God.” (1 John 3:1)

The truth of this verse is so very hard to comprehend when our lives don’t match up to this immense and wonderous love of the Father! It continues saying “But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know Him.”

To describe my world with a disabled child is much like a rollercoaster ride. How does God’s favor and love equate with a child who is incapable of anything? I struggle with His love as the Psalmist says, “For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13). Through ours and the world’s eyes, our daughter has no friends, trapped in a body that doesn’t function, has brothers yet no sibling unity, no husband, or no friends. What manner of love is this?

How glorious is our heavenly Father! Through our daughter’s life, a new awareness of an unworldly love emerges, a deeper love than anyone, including ourselves, can comprehend fully! God’s gift of this child does not come with normalcy. Her life comes with mystery in which we need to cling to God’s goodness and grace. A grace that allows the freedom to wrestle with this hardship. A grace that opens us up to His never ending well of love and goodness.

As we immerse ourselves in caring for this bundle of mystery, we are given a gift of sight and see God’s touch of love with His provision in medical care, in her pleasant and settled personality – a personality filled with joy and contentment. As we learn to lean on Him in our confusion and worldly definition of love, His presence increases. In the trauma and confusion, we find our tangled view of love is giving way to beauty and hope. A hope that is other-worldly; a love that the world will never understand.

The future and her life cannot possibly be marked, nor can we predict her days left here on earth. The Father knows far better when her life will be complete and will bring her the wholeness in her we so deeply crave. She is created to be different. What manner of love is this? It’s a love that holds us in our confusion, in our wrestle with His providence. It’s a love reserved for His children and our hearts are tightly gripped on Him.

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