Full Acceptance

 

I received an email from a friend of mine yesterday that prompted this memory...

Many years ago, perhaps when I was in Junior High School, some family friends of ours were going through the adoption process. During one of the interviews by the adoption agency, the father, in order to assess his readiness to be a father, was asked the following hypothetical question, "If your daughter came home pregnant, what would you do?"

His answer has stuck with me all these years...
"I would love her..."

My iWitness...

Pick the situation that applies to you...

Your son or daughter comes home and says...

1. I am pregnant...
2. I am marrying a person of a different race...
3. I am dating a person of a different faith or religion...
4. I have a venereal disease...
5. I am moving out...
6. I am addicted to pornography...
7. I am an alcoholic...
8. I am depressed...
9. I am a homosexual...
10. I am a woman trapped in a man's body...
11. I have just accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior
12. I just shot someone...
13. I just lost my job...
14. I hate you...
15. I am getting divorced

My friend emailed me yesterday and shared with me that my friend's child had come home and shared one of those fifteen statements...

Do you know what my friend's response was...
Well, here... let me let you read it for yourself...
"I love you!
I will support you no matter what!
You will lose family and you will lose friends, but not here.
Not from me..."

The love of a mom and/or a dad can be unconditional and one of full acceptance.
Notice I said, "can be."
Sadly, sometimes a parent's love is not unconditional and not one of full acceptance.

Here's the good news...
Hear the good news...

Our heavenly Father's love "is" unconditional and one of full acceptance!
Whatever we are carrying around...
Whatever is weighing us down...
Whatever we need to get off of our chest...
Whatever we are running from...
The Father runs to us and holds us close with words and actions of "full acceptance."
His words are this: I love you! No matter what!

And that's my iWitness...
Laugh often and Fear not!
David!

ps - My friend is a faithful reader of my blog.
To my dear and faithful friend,
please hear these words from me...
"I love you!
I will support you no matter what!
You will lose family and you will lose friends,
but not here.
Not from me..."

And Jesus said, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out." (John 6. 37)

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4. 16)