Love Unlimited

I was in Australia, travelling by car from Newcastle to Sydney. It had been a very busy day and I was tired. I slouched down on the front seat beside the driver, hoping to get a little sleep on the way home.

Then I heard — the voice of a little girl talking very sadly to her mother. "Well I love him anyway," she said.

Instantly I was alert. Sitting behind me in the back seat was 6-year-old Suzanne looking at her mother and talking earnestly about something very important.

"What was that you said?" I asked.

"I love him anyway," said Suzanne, with tears in her voice.

"Whom do you love so much?" I asked.

"My dog," said Suzanne.

"But doesn't everybody love your dog?"

"No," said Suzanne. "My mamma doesn't."

"What sort of dog is it?" I asked. "Is it a very big one?"

"No," said Suzanne. "It's just a teeny-weeny pug puppy."

"And your mother doesn't love it?"

"No," said Suzanne. "And she wants to get rid of it."

"But why doesn't your mother love your dog?" I asked.

"Because he chewed up her new dress shoes and tore up some of her cloths."

"Oh that was bad of him," I said. "What else did he do?"

"He pulled a sheet off the cloths line. And he tore up a newspaper and left the pieces all over the garage."

"Anything else?"

"Oh, yes. When mother takes the trash outside he brings it right back. The other day he brought back a whole lot of melon rinds and piled them on the kitchen floor."

"I can see why Mother doesn't love him very much," I said. "How about Daddy? Does he love the puppy?"

"He doesn't love him either."

"Why not?"

"Well, you see, just after Daddy washed and polished his car the other day, my dog ran all over it with his muddy feet. And was Daddy angry!"

"I can understand that," I said. "You must have quite a lively little dog."

"Oh, he's bad," said Suzanne. "I know he's bad. And Mamma doesn't love him and Daddy doesn't love him and nobody loves him--"

"Except you," I broke in."

"Cept me," said Suzanne. "I Love him anyway."

Suddenly I thought of all the boys and girls in the world who are just like Suzanne little dog. Lively, mischievous, and naughty as can be — but their mothers love them anyway .

Isn't that the way your mother loves you? No matter what you do, no matter how bad you get sometimes, she still loves you, and will go on loving you as long as you live.

And that's how it is with Daddy, too.

God is like that. He never stops loving us despite all our mistakes of the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of God, and says it is beyond our understanding. It is. It is just too big. It is "as far as the east is from the west" and you could never measure that, could you?

God's love is without limit and without end.

Somehow little Suzanne felt the greatness of His love when she said, talking about her naughty dog, "I love him anyway."