How Much More?

I’m playing with my niece, who is two, about to be three. Games of pretend—”Shh! The baby is sleeping,” while “Rock-a-bye Baby” plays on Spotify. (We’d covered her baby doll in tissues to signify blankets.) When the song is over, she grabs the baby doll by the neck, lifts it into the air, and yells, “She’s awake!”

Then she looks at Auntie (yours truly) and says, “I wanna go outside,” so we go for a walk. As we walk along, my mind—which is usually buzzing with problem-solving background music—is calm and happy. I think to myself how it really feels like nothing else quite matters in this moment. I’m just grateful. I love this child. What can only be maternal instinct floods over me, and I think how I want nothing more than for her to have a beautiful, joyful life and to protect her from every type of pain that I’ve ever experienced in my own. At a certain point, I become conscious that this is an experiential reminder: children are a reflection of the beauty and purity of God.

We went back inside “Baba’s” house (my grandma).

My niece tells me about something she likes. I tell her, “I liked that too when I was a little girl.”

She looks at me, surprised, and says, “You… were a BABY?”

And I remember vague glimpses of what it’s like to be that little—the assumption that the “big people” in your life have always been that way. Grandma has always been a grandma. Mom has always been a mom. Dad has always been a dad. Auntie has always been an auntie. Pastor has always been a pastor.

I find her assumption really cute and really funny, and I’m delighted in her innocence and wonderment.

“Yes, I was little too, but then I grew up, and one day you will grow up too.” Her brows furrow. “I not gonna grow up. I gonna stay with my mom,” she says, resolute.

Mom and Dad say it’s time to go. She says, “No, please.” (She doesn’t throw tantrums.) And upon her parents’ insistence she says, “I want Auntie to come with us.” My heart is fuller.

My sister-in-law assures my niece, “Auntie will come see you on your birthday.”

On the drive home, I feel an unusual contentment—joy even.

I think about how wonderful it feels to love someone so precious and pure. How I could never look upon this precious being with disgust or contempt. How I would fight anyone ferociously to protect her. How I love this child so much, instinctively and automatically.

And then, in the stillness of the car, I hear the whisper in the wind that wrecks me:

“How… much… more…?”

It hits me with a force. The idea of God loving me the way that I love my niece—and on such a greater scale, looking upon me with a tender-hearted delight, without contempt or indifference—

This idea makes me cry all the way home. When I arrive, I weep. I don’t really know what to do with this idea, so I just lie on the floor and get honest with Jesus.

I don’t really know how to accept this love. In fact, the idea of accepting this love kind of hurts. It’s not that I don’t have people in my life who have loved and sacrificed for me, but I suspect that a string of disappointments has taught my nervous system that resting in this kind of love “sets me up” for the whiplash of heartache.

As I lie there, I tell God, “I don’t really know how to receive Your love, but I receive it anyway,” and I repeat, “Lord, I receive Your love. I receive Your love.”

Another “whisper in the wind” comes to me as I lie there:

“The purity with which you look at your niece—that’s how I see you.”

Ooof.

That one was even harder to let sink in. It’s not like I don’t “know” that Jesus loves me and has forgiven me—that’s Christianity 101. But to know it—in my gut and in my nervous system, to know it in practice—that’s different. The goal is, of course, to know in every fiber of my being that kind of love.

And this is the invitation: to know, in every fiber of our being, the love of God. Perhaps we can begin by reflecting on the love we feel for the little ones in our lives and then imagine that love stretched, widened, and expanded to eternity. In doing so, we remind ourselves that God is tender-hearted toward us. He does not look at us with contempt or indifference. And for those who accept Jesus as Savior, He sees us with innocence and purity.

So we live, learning day by day to receive His love more deeply—until, one day, we know.

⸻