John
12:20-36. Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground,
dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is
buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way,
anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it
go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.
Reckless is not a word that comes to mind to describe
either of us, but becoming parents gives us a new perspective. Like Renee
Zellweger says to Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, “you had me from hello,” our
daughter Seema claimed our hearts from the first moments we held her in that
third floor office of Children’s Home in Kathmandu, Nepal. We love her so much,
so want her to be happy and safe in this dangerous world, that we hold her too
tightly, restraining her energetic embrace of life. But it is exactly there, in
that intersection of that protective love that we feel for our children and the
knowledge that we have to let them be free to learn on their own, to make
mistakes and to get hurt at times, that we are reminded of the truth of Jesus’s
words. Jesus exhorts us to live faithfully in a world where we do not have
certainty or control. We have to let go – reckless in our love – giving love
without judging what we get in return and without agenda. We need to give our
hearts with the knowledge that those we love may get hurt, or make poor
choices, or even hurt us. It is in this paradox, that in letting go we will
finally find true love and eternal life.
— Andrea & Russ Borgmann
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