It is often said that a parent’s love for her child is the closest picture we get of God’s love for humanity on this side of heaven. Years before motherhood was even on my radar, my own mother told me that when my first child was born, I would feel God’s love for me more deeply than ever before.

Last spring when that day came and my son was placed in my arms at the hospital, a glittering joy crescendoed into worship as I thought, Yes, this is exactly what I expected to feel — love beyond comprehension, loved beyond comprehension.

What I did not anticipate, however, was how the parallel (albeit an imperfect one) of a mother’s love for her child and God’s love for us would continue to evolve long after the initial newborn sweetness wore off and the grueling reality of being a parent set in.

In what has been the hardest and best year of my life, God has used motherhood to show me not just how much he loves me but what that love actually looks like.

Be still and know

My son is like a battery-powered toy that just keeps going and going and going until eventually the battery dies and the toy comes to a halt. Likewise, my son never stops moving until he falls asleep. He’s been this way since he could lift his head. Movement, activity, stimulation — this is what he demands every second of his waking hours.

I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s the prototype of a wild little boy. My husband was the same as a child.

And yet this has grieved me as a mother. If I’m being honest, I feel a little cheated.

I want to rock him to sleep. But he prefers to be laid down and left alone, free to roam his crib and wrestle his stuffed raccoon until its battery finally dies. I want to snuggle him — to wrap him in my arms, kiss the top of his downy head, and tell him all the things I love about him. He prefers the freedom of his legs (or his hands and knees; we’re not walking quite yet). I long for him to sit in my lap and flip through picture books. He would rather be sitting on his own playing with toys or getting into something he’s not supposed to (potted plants are his latest obsession).

I’ve wept over this resistance of his. Child, let me love you for goodness' sake! I want to tell him.

Abounding in affection for her child, a parent aches to pour out her love.

On Christmas this year, my thirst was briefly abated. After a long day filled with family, gifts, and feasting, we pulled into our driveway late at night. I did what I always do when we get home — unbuckled my son from his car seat, carried him inside, changed him into pajamas, fed him, and prepared to lay him down in his crib and walk away.

But just as I was laying him down, he did something he hadn’t done since the early newborn days. He rested his head on my chest. All the tension left his little body, and he just collapsed in my arms.

A Christmas miracle.

Tears welled in my eyes. I sat down in the unused rocking chair in the corner of his bedroom and just held him like that for an hour, trying to breathe as softly as I could for fear that he would wake and the moment would slip from me.

As I sat there silently weeping, a thin voice in my spirit whispered, I feel what you feel.

What?

I feel what you feel.

Over the next several days, the meaning unraveled itself bit by bit. The sudden shift in my son’s behavior was due to exhaustion and overstimulation from a day of ceaseless activity. Only when he had been sapped of all energy did he allow me to lovingly hold him close.

And suddenly I couldn’t unsee it: Am I not the same way? Like my son, I am a busy body. Early to rise and late to bed, my days are packed to the brim with productivity. Rest is a luxury I don’t much indulge in. In fact, the hurried life is where I feel at ease. I revere God; His Son Jesus is my Savior; the Bible is where I find truth. But like so many Westerners, I am addicted to what John Mark Comer calls “the hurry drug.”

When I am at my wits' end, crashed and burned, bone-tired and soul-weary — only then do I sit in my Father’s presence with no agenda, allowing Him to love me like a parent loves a precious child.

I realize now that this grieves Him for the exact same reason my son’s resistance grieves me. Abounding in affection for her child, a parent aches to pour out her love.

Again, my eyes well with tears.

Become as little children

Although my son is a busy bee, he is by no stretch of the imagination an independent child. If I so much as walk out of the room to grab my ringing cell phone, he bursts into tears. When I cook dinner, he clings to my leg and cries until I pick him up. Then he squirms and arches backward, begging to be put down again. This process repeats itself until I'm finished cooking. He doesn’t really want to be held; he just doesn’t want me paying attention to something that’s not him.

He loves to play with toys, but only if I’m watching him. Car rides are a disaster because he can’t see me (and yes, we have the mirror gadget; it doesn’t help). Walks in the stroller are short-lived because he can’t stand to face the opposite direction of me. I’m praying that in time the sky and trees will become interesting to him. But so far, no luck.

Full transparency: This aspect of his personality has been hard for me. I feel tethered to him to such an extent that brushing my teeth can be burdensome.

He’s so needy, I whined to my mom one day over a cup of coffee.

He’s just attuned to you, she said matter-of-factly.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:3 flashed into my mind — “become like children.”

Humbled, it registered that what I found annoying about my child was a beautiful image of how we are supposed to be with God: Dependent. Needy. Tethered. Attuned.

I heard somewhere — from a friend, a book, I’m not sure — that God gives us the child our heart needs. That certainly seems to be the case for me: a self-reliant independent who forgets that divine resources are a prayer away. My son’s insistence on my undivided attention is a mercy, a kindness, a gentle reminder to adjust my heart’s posture heavenward. I’m thankful.

White as snow

Every parent can relate to cleaning up messes.

One day my son had one of those epic blowout diapers that is no match for a changing table and some wipes. As I began stripping off his soiled clothing to put him in the bath, he suddenly sneezed, and because he had a cold at the time, snot got everywhere — all over his face and all over me.

This is what God sees when he looks at us. Utterly filthy, covered in a mess of our own making, and yet — beloved.

Before I could even pivot to grab a tissue, he threw up all over himself. In a matter of seconds, the child was covered in three of the most nauseating bodily substances.

Such a strange moment for God to reach down and nudge me.

As I took in the image of my son in the filthiest condition he’s ever been in, I could see it so clearly: This is what God sees when he looks at us. Utterly filthy, covered in a mess of our own making, and yet — beloved.

But the parallel continued to evolve.

Despite the staggering mess before me, I wasn’t harsh with my son. I didn’t let him sit there in his filth. Nor did I begrudgingly plunge him into icy bath water, grab a sponge, and start roughly scrubbing him clean while I grumbled about how inconvenient this whole ordeal was.

No, I bathed him gently, patiently, methodically — rinsing him with warm water, taking my time to make sure every inch of him was washed clean before I dried him off and dressed him in fresh clothing.

Again, I was struck with the emotive image of God’s kindness toward us. He doesn’t look down condescendingly from his heavenly throne, sighing in exasperation that we’ve made a mess of ourselves again. He isn’t hesitant to begin the process of cleaning us up, never rough or impatient as he washes our sin away.

He is tender and kind, never withholding grace, no matter how big our mess is — faithful to wash us clean over and over again, forever, until final glory when messes are no more.

I feel the same about my son. There will come a day when the season of cleaning up his messes comes to an end. Until that day, though, I will meet him in the filth, whether it's his own or it’s the muck and mire of mud puddles on the playground, and I will gently and lovingly wash him clean.

As I re-evaluated my son — now spotless and smelling of soap — God nudged me once more, this time with a question: Why?

Why the gentleness, the patience, the tenderness? Why the unflinching reaction to clean up this colossal mess?

Easy. Because he is mine.

Exactly.