Through the eyes of a parent

The past two days I've been away at a course on strategic communications. Today at lunch I sat at a table of professional women who work in the public service. Their ages ranged from early 30's to early 50's. One of the newly wed shared that her and her spouse are now 80% sure about not having kids as opposed to 110% sure from before. And the rest, who are obviously mothers, gave their point of view of what it's like to be a parent. One of the comments really resonated with me. She said, "You don't know unconditional love until you have children. With your spouse, it's definitely conditional. But with your children, it's something else. They could do something terrible, like murder a whole bunch of people, and you would still love them."

Isn't that something? As I thought over what she said, I realize that our parental nature.. that kind of unconditional love for our children is a trait we inherit directly from our Maker. Digging deeper, I have to acknowledge that despite the history between my dad and I, despite all the hurtful things he has said and done, that very parental nature kicked in. Instead of leaving me behind or kicking me out when the truth came out, he was determined to keep our whole family safe even if it's at the cost of leaving everything we had and moving back to HK right away. At the risk of being kidnapped, attacked or shot, he choose to pull me out instead of letting me go down the road of destruction. The Father working through my father. Oh the irony. I'm still waiting for the Father to save my father. One day...