By Katy Mariotti

The Love of a Parent

“For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?”
2 Corinthians 12:14b-15, English Standard Version

As a parent, I find the tooth fairy gig to be terrifying.  Whose idea was it to give children money for a tooth while they’re sleeping?  And we don’t even hide them under the pillow, (which would be worse), but it’s still right by their heads.  My children use tooth pillows that my own mom made when we were little.  One time my daughter put her tooth pillow in such an out-of-the-way spot that my husband had to do some Mission Impossible-style moves in order to access it.  Now when my kids lose a tooth I’m filled with anxiety!

There is so much as parents that we do for our children.  As a mom now of three, I find that just to try to get things done, anything that’s for me personally gets shoved to the side.  And that’s not me being selfless, that’s just the reality of life right now.  Even the things that need to get done I don’t feel like I have time to do, so things for myself are far down on the priority list.

But look at this little set-up my son made for the tooth fairy recently.  Not only did he leave the tooth in his tooth pillow, but he made her a present, wrote her a note, and left her a pen to write back.  My heart swells at the dearness of it.  So did I stay up until I knew he was asleep, sneak up to give him his dollar and write a note?  You bet I did, to give him that spark of joy and magic in the morning.  Because I love him.

As Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.”  I hope today on this Mother’s Day, we can be grateful for all that parents have done, sacrificially and gladly, for the blessings of their children, and all that God the Father has done for us, sacrificially and gladly.

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado