Bricks on the Path

My son Liam took this photo over the weekend. This is a photo of our foster daughter who left our home over two years ago to live back with her biological dad. She is skipping along the path in Enchanted Forest. When he sent this to me, It took my breath away. I asked him about it, and he responded with this deep hearted reflection.

“When l see it, I imagine we are the bricks that were a solid place for her to be able to run.”

Being a foster brother isn’t easy. Sometimes you’re the best and sometimes you get screamed at and rejected.

Yes, that’s very much what it’s like to love a broken person. It does a number on our heart. It’s more often a decision to love even when that other person isn’t “performing” the way we want them to. Or even loving us back the way that we love them. We decide to look past their actions, knowing they need love even when they don’t know how to receive it.

To be fair, that’s really hard to do unless we are receiving and are filled with love ourselves. That is why knowing, remembering and living within God’s love deep in our heart, enables us to love others so well. Even verses like “love your enemies” are possible with God.

We are learning to love from a satisfied fullness, not from a desperate need for someone to love us back, because we know we are already loved unconditionally. Though, human love can’t hold a candle to the bright burning sun of God’s great love!

Yet, by some miracle, every now and then we get to be a living parable of that love for someone else. It is one of life‘s most treasured blessings to be God’s ambassador of unconditional love in another's journey, even in small bursts or for a short period of time. A brick on the path as others learn to run toward God.

Photo by Liam Roby