Just a quickie today as I have LOADS to prepare for Easter services and events. I dropped in on one of our older members this morning and she was (rightly) proudly telling me about one of her children and their retirement today. Yesterday Hannah brought home an end of term school report of which she is justly proud. I am proud of her too. Earlier in the term I attended a Parents’ evening at Thomas’s school and experienced the monotony of all his teachers telling me how well he was doing. Again parental pride surfaced.
Pride is supposedly one of the seven ‘deadly’ sins. However I think that there is a difference between being proud of what your children have achieved and personal pride that leads to conceit and vanity. Even our greatest acts of humility and service can be undermined if we allow them to be tainted by pride. On the other hand, being proud of one’s offspring is a close relative of love – we are proud of what they have achieved because we love them and want the best for them.
Parental pride has a good pedigree: “You are my son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11). Imagine then the anguish in our heavenly Father’s heart when he saw Jesus mocked, beaten, crucified and dying. He would have felt no less parental pride than at Jesus’ baptism but it was pierced with the agony of separation and loss. That he allowed it without intervening and that Jesus submitted to it willingly shows the extent of God’s love for us: God allowed the eternal relationship of love that is God (Father, Son and Spirit) to be shattered because he loves us so much.
L O N G pause for reflection.
Don’t go on to the joke if you are still reflecting.
True story:
A local news reporter was interviewing a lady on her 100th birthday. He asked her about her life and how she had lived so long. He then asked her if, at the age of 100, she had any worries.
“Oh no, my dear,” she replied. “Not since I got my son into an old people’s home.”
nukelearfishing 
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