Barbara Walters ‘The best date I ever had’

{source}<div style=”float: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #c0c0c0; padding: 2px; margin: 10px; -moz-border-radius: 3px; -khtml-border-radius: 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 3px; border-radius: 3px;”><script type=’text/javascript’ src=’http://pshared.5min.com/Scripts/PlayerSeed.js?sid=281&width=400&height=225&playList=518293435′></script><br/></div>{/source}Barbara Walters was on a double date with her husband, having dinner with a couple they rarely saw.  It was 1968 and Ms. Walters was becoming a well-known television personality, having joined a short list of women reporting national news. Her career was successful, but no one knew her personal life had been a struggle. Barbara and her husband had been trying to have a child, but after three miscarriages the doctors had suggested they think about adoption.

The conversation took an interesting turn the evening of the double date. The friends, who were both lawyers, told Barbara and her husband about the attorneys they had hired to assist them with their search for a child to adopt. The couple had received a phone call that day saying there was a blonde, blue-eyed baby girl available for adoption. They had declined the offer because they wanted a blonde, blue eyed, tall boy. Four days later Barbara brought home the baby girl her friends did not want and named her Jacqueline, or Jackie.

I adore my daughter,” Walters said. “To know that you can have this kind of love that I feel for her…” and then her voice trailed off.

We lack adequate vocabulary to describe the love a parent has for a child. Parental love is a deep, abiding, controlling, profound emotion that values a child’s life more than his or her own. Parental love is the closest way in which humans can identify with the love God feels for us. Maybe that is why Jesus chose to call God his dad. Maybe that is why Jesus taught us to pray to “Our Father who lives in heaven.” Jesus wanted his followers to understand the depth of God’s love for them. God adores his children—with a perfect love.

I wish more people understood how God really feels about them. So many of the people we know see God as the chief rule maker, ready to unload his wrath on anyone who disobeys. I’m afraid people get that idea from us, the well-intentioned Christians. I’m thinking of all the times I have taught that lesson about God.

I want to remember Barbara Walter’s adoption story because it reminds me of the way God loves us. God wants us—regardless. God doesn’t care if we are male, female, blonde, brunette, tall, short, or any other criteria the world measures. God adores us, wants us, and is ready to adopt anyone as his child.  How do we let the world know how much they are loved and wanted by their Creator?

God continues to adore us—even when we are less than “adorable.” Barbara Walters said her greatest regret was not spending enough time with her daughter. Jackie has had issues with alcohol and has been arrested and charged with a DUI. None of Jackie’s mistakes and failures caused Barbara Walters to stop loving her daughter. And Barbara Walters is a fallen, human parent, like us. God never stops loving his children—God isn’t capable of not loving.

1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” The best way to love another person is to offer them the love God provides us. The Holy Spirit is the person and character of God that indwells his children. The Holy Spirit loves every person we will see today and wants to show that love through us.  So…if we are showing the world something less than love, whose idea is that?

There are many people today who have no idea how much they are loved by God. Our heavenly Father will be very proud of us today if we do our best to tell them. God is always ready to adopt another child.

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