Love You Forever

(Dedicated to Pat Davis and her faithful son, Jamey.)

"Love You Forever" is a Canadian picture book written by Robert Munsch and published in 1986.  It tells the story of the evolving relationship between a boy and his mother.  This is how it begins:

"A young mother holds her newborn son and looks lovingly at him.  

Softly she sings to him:

'l'll love you forever

I'll like you for always

As long as I'm living,

my baby you'll be.' "

The story goes on to tell of the mother going in the night to her son's room, holding him in her arms and rocking him as she sings this song to him.  As a toddler, a child, a teenager and a young man, she holds and sings this song to her son.

The story ends with the son entering his elderly mother's room, holding her in his arms and singing the song to her:

"l'll love you forever

I'll like you for always

As long as I'm living,

my mommy you'll be."

The love the son shows the mother is just an echo of the love she showered on him all his life. No matter what our age, we are always a parent's child and no matter how grown we become we are never too old to be loved by our parents.  

For those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, there is a parent-child relationship that can not be marred by time, condition or death.  The Lord will forever be our Father and we will forever be His children. Nothing can change that. And the love we show back to our Lord is just a faint echo of the love He has showered on us from "the foundation of the world." 

"The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." (Jeremiah 31:3.)

"We love him, because He first loved us." 

(1 John 4:19.)