I love you no matter what, Mommy

I have been really hard on Lindsey lately. I mean more so than normal and usually end up feeling horrible at the end of the day, asking her for forgiveness. Today, I was convicted in a very blatant way. While reviewing material for my Bible study, I started reading another book and came across the following passage:

"Children have an amazing faculty of forgiveness. Almost all parents are unjust to their children. We demand from them a standard of obedience, of good manners, of polite language, of diligence which we seldom satisfy ourselves. Time and again we scold them for doing the very things we do ourselves. If others treated us in the way we treat our children in the matter of plain justice, we probably would never forgive. But children forgive and forget and do not even realize it when they are very young. It would be so much lovelier a world if we could forgive as children forgive."

I mean, really, if someone treated me the way I sometimes treat my beautiful, sweet little girl, I wouldn't want to be around them let alone forgive them. But, my precious daughter ALWAYS, and without condition, forgives me and wants to be near me even after I have not been Godly towards her...just as my Heavenly Father ALWAYS, and without condition, forgives me and wants to be near me when I have not been Godly. That is perfect love. Children have a perfect love toward their parents that we need to learn from. As adults, we let our pride, angers, and hurts get in the way of loving others perfectly...but not children...they love us no matter what. God put these kids in our lives to remind us daily of HIS perfect and unconditional love for us. He doesn't love us "if"...He loves us always.

Fortunately, His mercies are new everyday, and so are Lindsey's. She doesn't deserve a raised voice. She deserves the tender voice of a mother that loves her perfectly even in rebuke...just as my Heavenly Father did to me when He led me to the above passage.