Grandma’s wisdom proves true

By DANIEL OVERDORF
Pastor

I never actually heard her say it. My grandmother succumbed to cancer when I was still a young boy. But I’ve heard my father recount it, each time with great emotion and appreciation in his voice.

When Grandma was expecting her second child, she felt guilty. She loved her firstborn, Jeannie, with a nothing-held-back, no-holds-barred, give-absolutely-every-sinew-of-your-heart kind of love. Grandma loved Jeannie with her fullest capacity to love.

Grandma feared she could never love a second child as much as she loved her first. It didn’t seem fair, she reasoned, to bring another child into the world, knowing she had no more capacity to love; she’d given it all to her firstborn.

However, when she gave birth to Phil, her second born, something phenomenal happened. She held her infant son for the first time and miraculously felt her heart expanding. Her capacity to love doubled. She loved Phil just as much as she loved Jeannie, and, somehow, she didn’t love Jeannie any less.

She later gave birth to Ken (my father). Then Connie. Then Tom. And with each addition to her family came additional capacity to love. Each son and daughter received the same boundless love she’d given her firstborn.

Grandma learned, and relished explaining, that God gives parents an unlimited capacity to love. We draw from a bottomless well. We give from a unbreakable account. We love from an unlimited heart. God gives parents an unlimited capacity to love.

Grandma’s wisdom proved true for my parents. I’m the youngest of their four children, and I can testify that our father and mother love all four of us with the same love my grandmother described. (In fact I checked the facts of this column with my father, via e-mail. He signed the return e-mail, “From one who loves you like that.”)

Grandma’s wisdom proved true for me. This week.

My wife Carrie delivered our firstborn three and a half years ago. When I first held Peyton my heart exploded. I love Peyton will all the love I can muster — absolutely nothing held back. When I watch him play, when I hear him laugh, when his Pop-Tart-covered mouth kisses me goodbye as I leave for work in the morning — the little tyke has the entirety of my love.

But this week, well, as Grandma would say, my capacity to love doubled. By the time you read this column, I will have held my second born, Ty, for the first time. Anticipating that moment, I can already feel my heart expanding. He’ll look up at me. Our eyes will lock. And immediately another heart full of love will pour from my soul into his. With every coo, cry, cuddle, and conniption my second born will have captured my heart. All of it. All over again.

I love Peyton with all my heart. I love Ty with all my heart. Amazing, huh? God gives parents an unlimited capacity to love.

Though, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. We’re created in the image of a Father who loves His children in the same way. “God is love,” the Bible teaches. He is, in His very essence, love. It is our Father’s nature, His makeup, His very reason for creating us. God’s love for His children is boundless.

Take it from my Grandma.

(Daniel Overdorf is the senior minister of Fayetteville Christian Church, located at New Hope and Hickory Roads in Fayetteville. He may be heard each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. as a part of the church's weekly worship. Daniel may be contacted at the church office--770-461-8763, or at fayettevillechristian@juno.com.)