See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children, and we really are! ... God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. (1 John 3:1; 4:9-10)

    We’re in that final year of high school with our daughter. Having been down this road before with a son, we understand a little bit better what is going on this time. In her first 8 weeks of school, she has been home one weekend. Her schedule is busy. Her sights are set on going to college. She is getting ready to reach “escape velocity” and go off on her own. We are being prepared for life with her out on her own. It is a good thing. She is making good choices. However, it is not necessarily an easy thing for her parents. We’re coming to the culmination of what began when she first started learning to walk — she will be leaving the nest!

    Our own discovery of having kids grow up and go off on their own has given us a much more profound appreciation of what the Father in heaven did. Sending Jesus to earth — God becoming human, what we call the incarnation — is a mind boggling and breathtaking gift of grace. Since God chose to reveal this incredible movement of grace through the lens of a Father sending his Son to earth, our experience as parents sending children off into the world opens our hearts to deep discoveries of this grace.

    God knew what lay ahead for Jesus and sent him anyway. The Father knew that his Son would serve others and would be rejected in the most brutal of ways. It was God’s plan to undo what Satan had done. While our hearts are thrilled with such love and grace, the parent part of us cries out, “How could he let him go?”

    It is one thing to send your kids off to college or into adulthood or into marriage. This is how it is supposed to happen. There are many joys caught up in their journey. There are moments of connection, love, and pride as we see them do what we have prepared them to do. It is quite another thing to send them off to a life of rejection, cruelty, suffering, and death. While our hearts are thrilled with such love and grace, the parent part of us cries out, “How could he let him go?”

God loves us with a love we do not know except for his grace and mercy.

    Of course, the answer is as simple as it is profound. God loves us. God loves us with a love we do not know except for of his grace and mercy. So we rejoice in a Father who loves us more than we can imagine. We are humbled that he would love us so. We pause and thank God once again for the privilege of being a part of our children’s lives. We trust that they, too, will find the Father who loves them more than they can imagine, who will travel with them in their journeys and bring them to similar place of discovery.

My child, may you know the grace of your Father who loves you even more than I can, and who will journey with you through all of life’s twists and turns. My you come to know his love and discover his grace.