Love unmeasured, boundless, free

One of my father’s retirement projects has been to carve out new trails through the woods that surround our cluster of houses up here on the mountain. He cuts down trees, widens deer paths, and snips tangled vines and briers to clear the way for us to walk where we haven’t walked before. As I ambled along his newest trail this week, I was struck by how a new path—even through a familiar landscape—can alter a person’s perspective. A new path reveals contours in the land I hadn't noticed before, vistas I hadn't seen. Without changing the boundary lines of a place, a new path opens up possibilities and offers a sense of freedom.

As my small daughter draws closer to being four years old, I am aware of new contours in my mothering landscape. My children are old enough now to care for themselves in many ways. My tall daughter and son can reach the sink to get a drink of water; they can open the fridge and cupboard doors and prepare simple snacks. All three children can dress themselves now; they can slide arms in coats, tug on shoes, and zip up zippers. Even the intensity of the bedtime routine is lessened now that the older children can brush their own teeth and pull the blankets up over themselves.

If I am honest, I relish the growing independence of my children. I don’t yet feel nostalgic for the days when they needed me for simple things, because most days I still feel desperately needed. Although they may not require help getting dressed, the children still crave my attention, answers, and assistance. My tall daughter needs time to talk about her life and to be assured she is loved and known. My son needs a partner to play card games with him and to solve the latest math problem he’s constructed in his head. And my small daughter needs time to snuggle in my lap, or to dance with me in the living room, or to enter a world where every story ends happily in marriage.

In some moments, I am keenly aware that I am entering a spacious place, not only because of maturing children but also because of the tender presence of my parents next-door, who provide pockets of time in the week for me to care for myself. And in other moments, I am keenly aware of the limits of my freedom. Last week I listened to a wise woman speak about how being a care-taker can breed frustration, how our testiness with the ones we love comes from anger over the rigid boundaries of our lives. Together we read the words of St. John of the Cross, who writes about how God can take the besetting sins in our lives—the pride, greed, wrath, luxury, gluttony, envy and sloth—and give us virtues like humility, simplicity, contentment, peace, moderation, joy, and strength. Through the difficult seasons, God desires to take my wrath and replace it with a deep and holy contentment.

After the children were in bed last night, I sat in the quiet and listened to Audrey Assad’s achingly beautiful rendition of the old hymn “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.” The first stanza goes:

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free,

Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.

Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love,

Leading onward, leading homeward, to Thy glorious rest above.

Like a new path through a familiar patch of woods, the love of Jesus carves new contours of freedom through the sometimes prickly confines of my life. I am finite and cannot be otherwise. But I follow a God who is infinitely loving when I am not, infinitely forgiving when I am not, and who never stops leading me onward, leading me homeward, deeper into his glorious rest.