I remember when I was younger... I loved running. I used to run Cross Country. I grew up with parents that sacrificed their lives for their children. My parents ate out once a year when my grandparents used to visit us from the city... But apart from that they never spent money on themselves and whole life was directed at parenting their children.
My dad was born into a very wealthy british family. My grandfather was a cinematographer and started South Africa's first Film Production Company in Auckland Park in the 70's after spending his years post WW2 working in the industry.
My dad fell in love with my mother who came from a poor mining background. It was scandalous to my father's side of the family for their son to fall for this daughter of a convicted fraudster. My father chose love over loyalty and as a result faced rejection by his own family. My mom and dad decided to move hundreds of kilometres away and begin their family away from the scorn and hurtful rejection of the woman my father loved.
And so we grew up in relative poverty to the wealthy farming families who constituted our neighbours, and paupers relative to our wealthy cousins who enjoyed my grandparents favour.
I recall one season I looked at my running shoes and compared them to my fellow runners who were sporting the latest top shelf gear. I went home and asked for a new pair of shoes. My parents couldn't afford a new pair in their tight budget. I found out in hindsight that dad was earning less than R100 at the time, and I think mom was working for the church office half day at that point. Anyways, in typical manipulative fashion I demanded and sent my parents on a guilt trip until they eventually conceded. I remember that day well. I went into the shoe shop with my father and picked out a pair of shoes that in hindsight was probably worth twice his monthly income.
It breaks my heart now to know how my lack of thankfulness for my mom and dad's sacrifice must have cut my father's heart so so deeply to see his son's wicked heart. It was his desire to see me blessed beyond his capacity to bless. I can only imagine what they must have sacrificed to buy those shoes for their spoilt brat of a son.
Later on in my life I saw this situation revisited in the year after school. After a drug overdose I was rushed to a private clinic and spent a number of days recovering before I demanded that my parents book me into a drug rehab centre. I later learnt that the many thousands of Rands those 6 weeks cost resulted in bankrupting my father and he had to go begging to my Grandparents for financial help which I can only imagine must have hurt him deeply.
Why do I share this. Well I see the same pattern in my relationship with Father. I desire those 'shoes' more than I value the sacrificial relationship of the selfless giver who desires to bless to the cost of His own Son's life. How wicked is that.
Anyways I share that just as the Lord reveals my heart to me.
I can never take back the pain I caused my Mom and Dad in my past... But trust the Lord will give me the grace to value His gift of love and relationship with me before I go demanding shoes from the top shelf.
