Where's the limit?

 

Most good parents love their children very much and want the best for them. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to have children and grand-children, and no matter how old they are you continue to love them and care for them and even worry about them. This says a lot about your character and what a good person you are.

But how far would you go for your children?

In my first book, VISIONS, (ISBN-13 ‏: ‎ 978-1536976076 - AMAZON US and AMAZON UK), there's a passage where a young boy is very ill in hospital and the doctors have given up hope of survival. The parents have prayed for days and weeks and there's been no improvements in the boy's health.

Here's what the father says, "When Luke was very ill I prayed and prayed for him to get better. For days, and weeks I prayed so much that I was tired of praying. I lit candles in church, made promises to God, but to no avail. Eventually I stopped praying and lost faith in God. My feelings towards Him turned to anger and resentment. I stopped taking Communion, then I stopped coming to church altogether. I didn’t stop believing in God. No, I believed in Him al-right, but I turned my back on Him. I thought He didn’t care about me any-more."

A situation which I hope few of us have encountered in real life. I know there have been times in my life where I wondered whether God had abandoned me ... or was it me who distanced myself from Him? 

Eventually ... somehow, I came back to God.

But in the case of the distraught father in my book, he decided on another plan of action.

"I was desperate … I turned my back on Him …” mumbled the child's father, "my behaviour has been awful … as Luke got no better and was near to death … that’s when I thought of selling my soul to the devil. I’d read a story somewhere that a man had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a happy life full of riches. So I thought I’d do the same to save my son."

The ultimate act of love. He was willing to condemn his soul for eternity in exchange for his son's earthly life.

Now let me stress straight-away that I am in no way advocating such action. I will not reveal what happens next, you'll have to read the book to find out.

The point I am making is that there are times when we pray forever and seem to have no response from God. We could also either feel or be tempted to believe that He does not exist; or we think that He has abandoned us. Even Christ on the Cross believed that God had abandoned Him. (Matthew 27:46)

The reality is that God does not abandon us. We may wander away from Him, but He is always at hand, caring ... loving ... waiting for our return into His open arms.