My gift to Link on his last birthday was new headphones. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit for me because I was tired of hearing the sounds coming from whatever device he was using at the time. Link would take the headphones and stretch them out as wide as he could before he put them on his head. I warned him that doing so would cause them to break… and I warned him… and I warned him. Not even two weeks after his birthday he broke the headphones. My initial reaction was “I told you so.” However, almost immediately I thought, “You knew this was probably going to happen and he feels bad about it, so show him grace.”
Link is a sensitive soul, so my potentially being angry with him weighed on him. When he saw I wasn’t mad he gave me this huge hug. It was super sweet. I imagine in that moment his thoughts were about how much his dad loved him and thankful he was that, while he messed up, that didn’t stop him from being loved.
I feel like Link in that moment when I read Psalm 103. Not only does God forgive us in the innumerable ways that we fail every day, but he is also the creator and sustainer of all life. In verses 3-5 we see the benefits that come from Him:
3who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
How our God loves us is unfathomable, amazing, and something to never be taken for granted.
I said Link is a sensitive soul. That is one of the reasons I didn’t come down hard on him for breaking his headphones. I might have handled that differently with my other children because they are all different and Kasey and I understand them better than anyone because we live with them. If I understand my children well from just living with them, how much more so does God know us?
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The God who created us knows us on a level much deeper than even I could know with my own children. He knows our innermost being to the core of how we were formed. He can, and does, care for us on an intimate level. His love for us, even in our failures, is perfect.
My hope is that, like verse 20-22, I will sing praise to the Lord in all things and at all times because He is worthy.
VC Devotionals 