Ask

Here’s a question that comes up fairly often. It’s a question I’ve asked, and been asked, more times than I like to count:

How do you love someone deeply when you’ve never been loved that way yourself?

Or – rephrase it – how do you mentor someone else when no one’s ever mentored you?

Or – how do you set wise boundaries, when no one did that for you?

Or – how do you invest in others, when you’re not sure of the investment in yourself?

As a young mother, this really worried me. I remember holding a new, very loud baby, and wondering if it would be possible to love her. I did love her, on some simple, elemental level, but I also knew if she cried too long, too loud, too late into the night, there was part of me that would gladly hand her back.

Maybe that was closer to the surface for me than for most: my own parents couldn’t handle the challenge of parenthood, separated, and vanished, before I turned two.  I grew up in the care of my grandmother, who had raised four boys of her own, and then found herself with four more small children just months after her youngest son left for college.

So – how do you love someone deeply, when you’ve never been loved that way yourself? How do you parent, when your own parents let you down?

Those questions were woven tightly in my mind, until God sat me under a tree and rearranged them for me. I was on a retreat, and the assignment was to go spend some time thanking God for the people he had put in our lives, who had nurtured us, and cared for us, and shared his love with us.

We were given an hour – which seemed a ridiculous amount of time. I had my list made before I left the meeting room: My grandmother, Elda. My husband, Whitney. A family friend named Aunt Flo, who had done her best to be kind. No paper or pen needed.

For some reason, the very assignment made me angry. The deficit in my life seemed huge – the lack of investment, the abandonment, from both parents and God. I sat on a bench under a chair, opened my empty notebook, stared off into space.

Another name came to mind – another caring family friend. Reluctantly I wrote it down. Another name – director of the camp I went to as a child, a man who became my Bible study leader in my teens, a man who, I had to admit, generously modeled God’s grace and kindness when I least deserved it. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I wrote his name. Then another – a college friend, who pressed into my life when I was floating away. Another friend – another young mom God brought along just when I needed someone to help me learn to be a mom. My mother-in-law. Friends. Teachers. Gracious neighbors. I wrote the names down as more came fast. Soon, crying, I had a list several pages long. And the certainty – that has never left – that God’s love surrounded me.

And in that time of writing names, God made very clear: I’ve been loved deeply. By him, and by others who showed his love, answered his call to love. His love never leaves me. Even in my darkest moments, his love has waited close at hand, in ways I could never explain, and in other ways so obvious I almost missed it.

Yes, no doubt, my parents let me down. And, as I’ve come to see, as I saw even then – there are no perfect parents. Some try harder than others – some love more deeply than others – but finally, there is only one perfect parent, one parent who always does the right thing, who loves without fail – God himself.

And he has given what we need. In college I memorized James 1:5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” I’ve discovered the truth of that many times over. If I don’t have enough wisdom, I only need to ask. And if I don’t have enough patience, I can ask – and yes, it’s given, or taught, or demonstrated yet again. And if I don’t have enough love, I can ask, and feel love well up in ways that make no sense, except that God has promised.

Parenting is incredibly hard work. Babies cry for no reason, toddlers test their limits with bewildering zeal, and the challenges only seem to multiply as the years go by. Being a youth pastor, I confess, is every bit as difficult. But God’s promise of wisdom, patience, grace, and love, is multiplied along with each challenge. In fact, as he reminds us, his strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Memorize this promise – and repeat it when you’re tempted to say “if only my parents had done a better job”: 

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8

It's a promise. Just ask.