Open Access

For those of us with adult children, it is particularly delightful when they come over.
It is a time of sharing hearts and catching up.
It is a time of listening to dreams and seeing glimmers of those dreams on the horizon.
It is familiarity at its best.

Gone are the days of bandaging knees.
Gone are the days of snacks in special bowls and juice in favorite cups.
Now those knees are ones you kneel on to pray for those adult children.
Now those Sippy cups have become favorite mugs to enjoy a cup of tea and conversation.

I watch my adult children come back into the house they grew up in.
They still have their favorite spot next to the fireplace or in their special chair.
They still have the same spot at the dinner table.
It is as if a brass plaque has forever marked the spot with their name on it.

It is still home.
College dorms or apartments may be their mailing address.
However, home is a permanent place, a safe haven, a place where their stories began.
Home provides continuity from past to present; from who they were to who they will be.

I watched my oldest daughter the other night when she came over for dinner.
I enjoy my family all together but I love the one-on-one time as well.
She came heavy laden with packages after a day of running errands.
I made one of her favorite meals.

As she talked, she showed me two presents she had bought for two special little boys.
Little boys that are dear to our family and very special to her.
She went to the closet where the wrapping paper is kept and got the wrapping supplies.
She went to my desk and got the tape and the scissors.

I smiled as I watched her, thinking about the comfort of home.
Only my child has the right to approach any part of my home with such freedom.
A stranger could not come in and open closets or drawers, or put packages in my kitchen.
Only my child has that right.

Only my child had the right to play with my hair as I held them as babies in my arms.
Only my child had the right to cuddle against me at any time and fall asleep.
Only my child had the freedom to come into my room and wake me about a bad dream.
Only my child could cause me to drop whatever I was doing to listen to them.

My five children can point to any part of my house and talk about a memory there.
The initials carved on their bedroom windowsill when they thought I didn’t know.
The creaks in the floorboards that they have grown so used to hearing.
Special places to hide when a good game of hide and seek passed the time on a rainy day.

After Easter, they would often take empty plastic eggs and hide them in the house.
That would keep them busy for hours as they had their own Easter egg hunts.
You’re getting warmer, would be their cry.
Years after the last hunt was played, I found a forgotten egg tucked away.

Feelings of nostalgia and wistfulness came over me.
This is the way it is supposed to be, but it is still very difficult.
A mother is always a mother in her heart and her children are always her children.
The hard part is seeing them as her children while seeing them as adults.

Open access.

He was in the world and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or by a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. (John 1:10-14)

Not everyone has the right of open access to God the Father.
Just being born does not give you that right.
Just living does not give you that right.
There is so much more.

Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or by a husband’s will, but born of God.

Those who receive Him have that right.
Those who believe in His name have that right.
The right of open access.
The freedom to call God their Father.

The Resurrection made sure of that!

I am returning to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God. (John 20:17)

Two little words say it all.
Receiving Jesus and believing in His name, makes the words MY and YOUR significant.
God is not an impersonal, aloof God.
He is Father to Jesus and Father to us when we believe in Jesus.

My children have open access to my home because it is their home, too.
As my children, they have that right.
They didn’t earn that position; nothing they did on their own made them my children.
Once my child, that position can never be taken away from them.

So it is with God.
Once His child, through faith in His Son, Jesus, that position can never be lost.
It is secure.
Open access to the Father through Jesus.

What a privilege!

 

 

2 responses to “Open Access”

1. What a beautiful analogy! Thank you for your inspiring words.

   Reply

   • Diane,
     I am delighted that you were blessed.
     God is there in the everyday moments so we can know HIM better.
     Gina

     Reply