Recently I shared Bible verses intended to encourage couples in their marriage. Many of the verses focused on love with one of them identifying the various things that define love.
It is my belief that all of these qualities are present in us as children. We love without limits. No matter what our parents do in our eyes they are sheer perfection and our desire is to have nothing more than their love. We forgive and keep no record of their wrongs. As we grow older and face our share of challenges, disappointments, heartbreaks and the various things that come with growing up, maintaining these characteristics begins to take more work. And for some of us, it isn’t always as easy or as natural as it was when we were little. Some of us struggle to forgive unlike our children who can be fighting one minute and the next minute playing make believe on the playground with a peer.
That quality is one of the many things that makes being the recipient of a child’s love so miraculous. There is nothing on earth like it. If a child gives you their heart you are being given the most precious gift there is. But as the scripture says, “To whom much is given much is required.(Luke 12:48)”
My husband opened his arms and his heart to my daughter and I. I have watched his eyes light up at her accomplishments and I have seen the hurt in his face when her little heart ached. I have listened to him read bedtime stories, twirl her in the air and pray with her. I have talked to him as he has left work to go volunteer at her school and stood in the kitchen watching him help her with her homework. He has put together toys, driven around with a truck full of balloons and stood in line at amusement parks while little girls giggled with excitement behind him. He has adorned paper crowns and posed for a million pictures. There are countless things that he has done simply because there is nothing that brings him more joy than seeing his child happy.
His child. Our child.
You see, from the moment he opened his heart to receive the gift of her love, from the moment she began to feel confident enough to rest her tiny hand in his and draw him in our family photos – perhaps even before that it was clear that she was destined to be his.
The very thing my baby longed for was a daddy and God saw fit to give her that in the form of a loving, hardworking caring man. A man who made room in his heart and life for two loves. A man who understood that to whom much is given much is required. A man who decided that we would be a team, that my family of two would become our family of three.
When people tell my husband that our daughter looks just like him he smiles and says thank you. When people tell my daughter she looks just like her daddy her face lights up and she thanks them. They know that from a scientific standpoint their genetic makeup is not one in the same. But their hearts mirror one another, their spirits are kindred and so many of their characteristics are just alike. The two of them are a match made in heaven and a testament to the fact that love trumps DNA. Every time.
It takes more than genetics to be a parent and some of the greatest parents do not share the same genetic makeup as their children. And with the exception of a difference in physical characteristics you’d never know it. And to be honest does it matter all that much? My husband had a heart that was equipped and willing to receive not just my love but also that of my child.
Love is a powerful force and our family has been blended into something quite beautiful. Because of God’s grace and mercy my child didn’t have to pay for her mother’s poor decision making. And because of His great love for us He blessed us with everything we needed even if we didn’t know it at the time.
Humbled and grateful that love did its thing. Love trumped DNA.
BMWK – We talk a lot about the challenges of blended family life, but we have to also have to talk about the blessings in a blended family. And love, is definitely a blessing.