(Note: Some of my regular readers may recognise some of this quick word for a post earlier this year 'Child of Mine: Bye Bye Baby').
I was reading an essay recently called ‘Bye Bye Baby, on Mother Guilt and Poverty’ by Abigail Stone. In it she opened up a world to me of complex love and failure. She loves her daughter; but failed her too. She failed her child because as a mother she was young and poor and stupid and selfish. But not because she didn’t love her. Not because she didn’t have dreams for her. In the essay she reflects on her daughter, an adult now but with so many problems – a daughter who can’t stand being with her mother, can’t stand her own body. And she looks back, feeling so guilty for her mistakes, so overwhelmed by her love.
It is a powerful essay. It reminds me that failure in relationships doesn’t mean there is no love. Because you could reverse this story – make it about the love of a daughter, me, for a parent, God, and I would be the one who is too stupid and selfish, the one whose love is mixed with failure.
The Bible records a story much like this one – the story of Peter. He loved Jesus - passionately, wildly - but he fails him, abandons and denies him. And what does Jesus do? In John we see Jesus meeting Peter and asking him ‘Do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”
And Peter, we are told in Matthew, this man who loved but failed, is the rock upon which the church is built.
What a story, what a hope! I bring a complex mix of love and failure to my relationship with God but he cares only for the love, and has provided a solution for the failure. Thanks be to God!
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