Can I really love her?

One Sunday over the summer during the height of Little R’s tantrums we had arrived at church with a tantruming child on our heals.  No one saw this because she was able to put on the charm when we arrived in the building most of the time and no one knew that for 2 hours prior to arrival she had raged.   We were just surviving each day and taking each moment as they came.  We never knew on any given day what was going to set of a tantrum and that morning was no different.  I was feeling drained and just going through the motions of the day and honestly feeling less and less connected to little R because of the tantrums and abuse we were sustaining at the hand of her tantrums.  This particular Sunday our Church Worship Team sang a song and the lyrics to this song spoke to me in such a personal way.  How appropriate that it was played on this particular day.

Here is a section of the song that I found most moving to me:

The Little Girl with the broke heart
her mommy and daddy, they've split apart
O what a place to be
To live in a home without a family

Something I see in her big brown eyes
Her world has been crushed by the fights and the lies
She just wants to be loved
O how she's longing to be loved

And I know she needs something more than just a prayer
She needs to be loved, she needs to be shown that I care

Chorus
 I want to love like you, Lord
I want to have compassion in my life
I want to love like you Lord, I pray
I want to love like you, Lord
O won't you give me passion in my life
I want to love like you, Lord
Help me to love, teach me to love like you

There were days that I felt like we were just going through the rhythm of just staying afloat and not showing God’s compassion and love and I wanted her to see God’s love. I wanted her to know how much she is loved by God but also by us and that we will love her and show her compassion even through her tantrums and the distance she was putting between us. Loving a child who does everything in her power to push you away is taxing on your emotions and physically exhausting to go through the tantrums. That day as worship continued I cried with Little R in my arms praying silently that God would help me to reach this little girl