A Love That Lasts
Let those who honor the Lord say it: “God’s faithful love lasts forever!’” – Psalm 118:4 (CEB)
Do you remember the popular 1980s children’s book, Love You Forever? It traces a mother’s love for her son through the lullaby refrain she sings to him throughout his life as she cradles him in her arms. It is a tearjerker for every new parent, or any child that grew up hearing that same lullaby whispered, but it has also become a point of awkwardness and ridicule. A mother climbing a ladder into her grown son’s room while he sleeps? Is that love, or is that trespassing?
Thirty years later, a new writer updated the book with an ending that incorporated some healthy boundaries between mother and son. The hope was to mold the eye-rolling elements into a story that allowed readers to stay focused on the love. In this rewrite, the original book has found renewed life and is being shared as a language of parental love for a new generation.
It’s not just children’s books that call for new images and metaphors, for shifts in how our stories are told or who is telling them, and for adapted language to allow us to understand the message without getting stuck in a mucky part. The particularities of our sacred stories and scripture, hymns and liturgy, can sometimes cause us to stumble, step back, and miss the overarching message they hoped to convey.
When contexts change, so must the stories we tell in order to equip us to first perceive and then proclaim God’s love in our lives. The details might bend and shift, but God’s love will last forever.
Prayer
May we find God’s love in the center of our stories and in the heart of our traditions.
About the AuthorEllis Miller serves as the Designated Pastor of Granby Congregational Church, UCC and is the author of Only Work Sundays: A Laidback Guide to Doing Less while Helping Your Church Thrive.