Book Four - True Family
Chapter Eight - True Parental Love
Section 1. Parental Heart Wants to Give Everything

Parents who have given birth to and raised children all understand the desire to receive blessings and feel happiness through their sons and daughters, whom they love dearly. Also, if they have established a correct standard through which they can experience joy, they will want to bequeath this to their offspring for eternity. Even fallen parents hope that their children will grow up as fine people who can be followed and revered by all nations and praised eternally.

The parental heart seeks to protect children from harm and is concerned about them day and night. The heart of fallen parents can even be like this. For example, a mother ignores the diaper smells from her baby while nursing her child at her breast. Thus, if fallen parents have such a heart towards their children, how earnest must God's heart have been, longing to love Adam and Eve based on their original hearts? You should all think about this. When you nurse and nurture your babies, you sing them lullabies and whisper to them, wishing that their lives will be a success. Any parent has such a heart.

No matter how incompetent or lacking parents may be, if one of their children suffers from a disability, the parents' hearts are devastated to the point of breaking. If this situation is then resolved, the relief and joy are overwhelming in proportion to the original pain. If such is the heart of a fallen parent, what must be the heart of God? (20 209.1960.6.9)

If a son commits a crime and is sent to prison, the parents tearfully forgive and reach out to him, instead of saying, "Serves him right!" This is why parental love is extraordinary. Similarly, if a son is sentenced to execution, his mother will be totally grief-stricken and seek any way, even changing the world's legal systems or risking her life, to save her son. (91-147.1977.2.6)

Such is the unchanging and sacrificial nature of the parental heart towards the children. (80-211, 1971.11.8)

Do loving parents keep an account of the times they love their children, saying: "We bought you shoes and clothes a few days ago with our hard earned money, which cost us so many dollars and cents?" When parents love their children, they want to treat them even better than princes and princesses, and still feel sorry that they cannot give more.

Parents have the heart of wanting to give their children something better. This is why we cherish parental love. You should all know this. Parents give and yet feel that it is not enough; they love and yet feel as if there is some love they have not yet given and want to give more; and even after giving, they still feel unsatisfied with what they were able to give their children. This essence of parental love is then what connects us to eternal love. This is the original motivation for the beginning point of love. (60-n. 1972.8.6)

When relating to their children, parents want to give all their best possessions. That is parental heart and reflects the nature of God. Then, what kind of being is God? God is a being who wants to give all His precious attributes to those who truly become His children. (56.147, 1972.5.14)