This will be my first Mother’s Day as a mother. After years of trying and experiencing the pain of loss and disappointment, we made it to this crazy, wild, and lovely place where my little boy is a part of my new reality. People told me I would figure out a way to do the “mom thing” in ways I never imagined I’d be capable. Or competent. They told me I would not even understand how it’s possible to love like this. And now I find that was an understatement, because as soon as I heard him cry for the first time I knew I was a goner. I knew I would do anything for this little human.

Love makes us act a certain way. Love inspires us to do the best we can with what we have and act in ways that we may not have even known we could act. Love makes us better and makes us want to be better, for ourselves and for each other. That’s what I find in Jesus’ words in John 14. In verse 15, Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus doesn’t say, “I’ll love you if you keep my commandments.” Jesus loves us unconditionally. What I hear Jesus telling us is that when we love, we will act a certain way. We will do what is necessary to follow Jesus in our particular time and place. We will keep Jesus’ commandment to love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We may not know we’re capable (or competent) of loving the way God calls us to love. And when we fail (as we are prone to do from time to time), Jesus is there to forgive us and love us anyway. By the grace of God, there are moments – glimmers in time – when we actually do let the love of God shine in and through us in word and in deed.

In love, I find myself imagining all the things I would do for this new little life in my care. In love, we are called to imagine and live out the ways Jesus calls us to love – following the command to love one another the way God first loved us. Give yourself grace and remember Jesus is with us and in us (we are not left orphaned, as Jesus promises in John 14:18). May that encourage us to live kindly and justly, to work for one another’s dignity and humanity, and to do the best we can with what we have where are.