Lullaby of Unconditional Love

During a recent sermon, I read one of my favorite stories to the congregation. It is a book by Robert Munsch called Love You Forever. It tells of a mother who watches her son grow up through the years, longing to express the incredible love that all good parents feel for their children.

In the story, the mother holds her infant in the rocking chair and sings:

I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living,
My baby you’ll be.

As the boy grows into a toddler, and then a teenager, and finally an adult, she continues to hold him and rock him back and forth, back and forth singing her song of love.

I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living,
My baby you’ll be.

Finally, when she is old and tired, she calls her son to come visit her. She tries to sing her lullaby to him, but she is too weak to finish it. Hearing her struggle, her son goes to her, picks her up into his lap, and sings it back to her:

I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living,
My mommy you’ll be.

I don’t think there is anything as sacred as having someone who loves us deeply sing/pray for us; it unleashes a Spirit that speaks possibility into our lives like nothing else. This is what Jesus did in his final hours with us on this earth.  If Jesus was praying for your life today, what would he pray for? Here is a hint: it would be wherever you are holding yourself back from living authentically.
Jesus’ prayer was finally that we would know God as surely as we know ourselves, but the good news is that, regardless, God will always be singing the lullaby of unconditional love in the earnest hope that we one day sing it back.