Guess How Much He Loves You

By Karen Lembo –

As my children were growing up, my favorite time of day was bedtime–and not just because I was finally going to get a break from them! That became our special one-on-one time to cuddle in the rocker and read a bedtime story. I started to read to each of my children when they were only a few months old. As I write, I can just imagine the rhythm of the rocker, the lilt of the words I still have memorized, and the warm softness of my child snuggled close against me. When the story was over, I would sing a gentle chorus, and quiet my child for his or her night’s sleep.

It is a sacred mystery how the experience of bedtime stories can communicate so much love and security, far more than any words could say. One author came very close with his book Guess How Much I Love You. As Little Nutbrown Hare questions his parent’s love, he takes noticeable delight in upping the ante with each progressive challenge until, exhausted, he just relaxes in his parent’s love and drifts blissfully off to sleep. While the story is very effective in communicating a parent’s love, it is nothing compared to what is communicated in that rocker, just experiencing the ritual, the closeness, the creation of an imprint that will stay with our children forever: “You are loved–unconditionally and deeply.”

Sometimes I ask those questions, too. I read something like: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children…” (Ephesians 5:1) and I can’t help but ask, God, do you really love me? Am I really your “dearly loved child” (or do you just put up with me)? It’s not that I don’t believe Him. I think I just need to get the thought to sink in more deeply. He responds: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). Where Big Nutbrown Hare loves Little Nutbrown Hare “up to the moon and back,” my Heavenly Father loves me “to infinity…and beyond!”

Other times, I wrestle with these thoughts because I am aware that I’ve blown it, that I have been unlovable, that I have failed Him, sometimes badly. And the amazing thing about God’s love is that it doesn’t matter–His love is unchanging: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). I may continue to question the depths of His love, somewhat like Little Nutbrown Hare, yet far less securely, but eventually His message penetrates my calloused heart and melts me in His grace. I am loved–unconditionally and deeply.

In those moments when I lay awake–for whatever reason–if I turn my thoughts on my Heavenly Father, then there, in the darkness, His warm softness greets me like those bedtime story moments. He recalls the words He has spoken to me over the years and as I lay there in His Presence, I, too, drift blissfully back to sleep. Somewhere deep in the background of my slumber, I may even hear Him singing: “He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

Dear friends, we are loved–deeply and unconditionally, to infinity and beyond. “My prayer is that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how long and high and wide and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19).

Karen Lembo is a writer and artist currently residing in Salisbury, MD with her husband Art, and their three children, Emily, Arthur, and Katie. She has extensive experience as a Bible study and small group leader, children’s minister, and Moms in Touch prayer group leader. Karen’s blog, “Living Above the Laundry Pile”, and her artwork can be accessed at www.karenlembo.com.