10 May The Allure of Forbidden Fruit

I’m raising a nudist, shoeless, headed-toward-a-mullet-and-dreadlocks hooligan. Lately, it seems as if everything, big or small, can ignite a battle of wills. At the end of the day, the unpredictability of toddler whims and toddler timetables leaves me feeling like I’ve been negotiating a U.N. peace treaty instead of being a mom to only one exuberant child.

You want me to wear a diaper, Mom? You must be joking!!

You want to put a ponytail in my hair? How dare you?!?

You’re telling me I can’t run around with Mimi’s open lipstick? Get outta here!!

You want me to wear clothes when we leave the house? Who do you take me for??  (I’ve given up on her nudity at home. Whatever. Ok, I’ve also given up on it after swim lessons.)

Of course, it’s not all high drama, there are some upsides.

Like yesterday when I was driving and she said, “Look it, Mama, look it!” I reached back to her seat, ready to receive her toddler gift and she proudly plopped a big crunchy booger in my hand. “Look, Mama! A boogey!” That a girl, you show those giant boogers who’s boss.

Wait, I was talking about upsides, right?

She is the primary vessel of my sanctification, but she is simultaneously the sweetest creature alive. Her blue eyes are mesmerizingly gorgeous, her little toddler voice singing Jesus Loves Me or Deep and Wide makes my heart melt, and I live for her morning snuggles.

But the power struggles are real. It’s all fun and games until we have to do something, anything, that’s not exactly what she wants to do when she wants to do it. Leave the house at a certain time? Good luck. Tell her she can’t go in a certain room or eat cookies for breakfast? The world is ending. It’s like as soon as she gets a whiff of my desperation or the necessity of doing something, or heaven forbid, a “no,” a little light goes on inside her that says, “I must resist!”

For instance, today Daddy was on a conference call outside. Penny was happily playing inside and helping me cook … until she spotted Daddy and wanted to go outside. “No, Penny, Daddy is on a call, stay inside and help Mama. Look, we’ll cut up a pineapple!” I try to suggest lots of happy distracting things in a sing-songy voice. Sometimes it works. Not today.

“Nooooooo, Mama!” “I want to play with Daddy!” Suddenly, the only thing that mattered was getting outside to exactly where she wasn’t supposed to be. She became singularly focused on the one thing she couldn’t have.

I don’t want you to get the impression that I don’t discipline my child or that I let her rule the roost. I’m trying not to create an exclusively child-centered home because I don’t think it’s healthy. But I am also trying to pick my battles and live by the mantra that if it doesn’t matter in five years, it doesn’t matter. That’s why she’s naked at home, because, really, who cares?

Today, as I steeled myself for a battle of wills (thank God for locks she can’t open), I had a piercing moment of clarity. The Holy Spirit whispered, “Do you see how you’re like that too, Natalie?”

Oh, trust me, I see. With a wry smile and a chastened conscience, I started thinking about how I am exactly like my two-year old when it comes to fixating on things I can’t have, even if it’s something I’m not sure I even want. Just a whiff of a “no,” and I’m hooked. Wait, this might be a “no?” Then I absolutely have to have it! NOW!

As you all know, we’re in a season of waiting, a prolonged period of transition. Daily, I find myself longing for financial stability, a home of our own, etc.

I’m so distraught by the “nos” in my life that I’m tempted to miss the beauty that’s right in front of me. I’m dangerously close to missing the green pastures and the quiet waters of Psalm 23. I don’t want the rich blessings of this season to slip through my fingers.

Just like I can see that a “no” for Penny or a “not right now” is healthy, beneficial, and necessary, God, my omniscient, omnipotent Heavenly Father knows what I need and when I need it.

Why do we fixate on the things we can’t have? Eve knew well the allure of forbidden fruit, and her fixation caused the fall of humanity.

As I’ve been pondering this question, I think it comes down to understanding and believing in the character of God.

Do I really believe he is good? All the time? To me? Do I believe he is working on my behalf and that he loves to give good gifts to his children? Do I believe that his timing is perfect? Do I believe he will provide? Do I believe that he loves me?

There it is. LOVE.

That’s the zinger, for me, anyway. Do I really have faith that God loves me? Do I even know what his kind of love is? Because if I do, the allure of forbidden fruit loses its hold on me. I can stop focusing on the “no” and instead trust my Father.

I’ve been on a journey of understanding God’s love for several years now, asking the Lord for the “power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18).

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been spending a few moments each morning imagining myself in a present flood of God’s love. I imagine his love is washing over me like a rushing waterfall. I am completely engulfed by his love, and this love will carry me through the entire day. I’m still working on grasping God’s love, but this exercise is helping.

Yet how can I begin to grasp God’s love for me if I just think about love from an earthly perspective? Our love is but a shadow of his love, a mere inkling of a greater good.

I think the closest experience is being a child. As children, we know the happy delight of adoring love that is unearned, unconditional, and automatic. For a child, the mere fact of your existence brings exquisite delight. Your smile elicits an expression of pure wonder from your parents. They live to behold you, to stare intensely into your eyes, memorizing your every feature. All day, every day, you are the recipient of fervent, protective love. I think that’s what God’s love is like.

That’s very different than the love I experience in even the very best of my adult relationships. As we grow up, we become friends, partners, and adult children. Our relationships have mutuality and there are expectations we must uphold. Love looks different, and it’s more work.

Some of us have gotten bumps and bruises from love along the way. We’ve experienced living in a fallen world filled with fallen people attempting fallen relationships.

So, we begin to wonder what it’s like to be loved unconditionally and without reservation. We feel the longing for it in the deepest parts of our being, but we’re afraid, also in our deepest parts, that a love like that doesn’t exist.

We hear about God’s love, that his love is like this. We read that his love is unending and unfailing, as far as the east is to the west. His love is the kind of love that moves heaven and earth. It’s love that embraces sacrifice. His love is the ardent, pure, pursuing, unadulterated, and perfect love we haven’t known since childhood, if we ever did.

This love seems too good to be true.

But it isn’t too good to be true. His Word says he loves us with exactly the kind of love we’ve been looking for, and his Word is truth. I see the echoes of his love in the love I have for my daughter. I glimpse it in my own walk with him. It’s real and I want more of it. It is ours for the taking, we have but to ask.

“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so … Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.”

P.S. I’m excited to share my book with you in a few weeks! We’ll be giving away a free copy:)