Finishing of Love

If you have children under the age of 18, it is crucial to make sure that your children have a place to live with people you trust if something ever happened to you. It's essential to legalize this by having a will stating who your children's guardians are to be, so it is not left up to the courts. Making this type of provision is hard because it makes you think of death, which is hard to deal with, but to ensure your children's wellbeing, it is something that you must do because your children deserve that.

In John 19: 26-30, we read about Jesus' final moments on the cross and what took place. The passage says that while on the cross, Jesus saw His mother and the disciple He loved standing nearby, and He said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son!" and to the disciple, He said, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour, the Bible says the disciple took her into his own household. After this, Jesus knew that all things had already been accomplished in order that the scripture would be fulfilled, said that He was thirsty. They gave Him a sponge soaked in sour wine, and after He took it, He said, "It is finished." The scripture says that He then bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

In these final painful, agonizing moments of Jesus' life, we see how much earthly relationships mean to Him. Here He is crucified on a cross, suffering from bearing the sins of the world upon Him along with open wounds from being tortured, and making sure His mother will be taken care of when He is no longer with her out of His love for her. He didn't just tell her He loved her and hoped her life would be well, but made provision for her with the disciple that He loved and obviously trusted. Then when all things like the scripture say had been accomplished, that is when He said, "It is finished," and nothing was left undone.

So often, we tend to view God only as one who wants obedience and is waiting to slam the gavel down on us, and we can fail to see He is loving and compassionate. While obedience is vital, we need to understand God also cares about our relationship needs, and He will meet them. It may not be when or how we think it should be, but it will be handled in His timing and in His perfect way. Just like in His family situation, He waited until He was on that cross and in front of everyone suffering before He made provision for His mother- not beforehand. The timing of this is unclear but never the less He proved to everyone that He is a God of love, order, and compassion and is about meeting relational needs.

So, whatever relational needs we have, we need to know that God sees it and will make provision for us as well, just as He did for His own family.

From Gardens of Splendor by Gina Burns