God, our Parent, is entirely faithful to us. But God is Beyond faithful. God is faithful to us because God is a Parent Who loves us passionately and compassionately, more than our parents or any human being ever could.
God is our Mother and Father, encompassing and surpassing the qualities of both masculine and feminine parents. We don't stress "God as Mother" enough. Yet - "How can women be in the Image of God if God cannot be imaged in female form?" says Biblical scholar Marcus J. Borg. Indeed the Bible uses many female images as well as male images to describe God's faithful, passionate, and compassionate Parental love for us.
The words of Scripture are God's reassuring words to us.
In the Jewish tradition, God is the Compassionate Father, compassionate even Beyond human fatherliness: "Father of the fatherless, defender of widows." (Psalm 68:6.) In Biblical Hebrew, "riham," compassion, comes from "rehem," which means "the mother," and "the womb." God also feels compassion for us as a Mother Who feels compassion for the child of her womb! And even Beyond a human mother's compassion: "Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will not forget you." (Isaiah 49:15.)
In the Christian tradition, we hear "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our troubles." (2 Corinthians 1: 3-7.) Jesus tells us that when we see him, we see the Father, and teaches us to pray "Our Father." Yet he also doesn't mind imaging a Mother God when he laments "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!" (Luke 13: 34.)
God is faithful yesterday - beyond the earliest yesterday we know. God knew us before we even existed! "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you," says the Jewish prophet Jeremiah. Pope Francis comments on these words: "We were conceived in the heart of God, and for this reason, each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
God willed us to be: WE ARE NOT ACCIDENTS!
God thought of us and knew us before we were in the womb: GOD KNEW WHO WE WERE BEFORE OUR PARENTS DID!
God conceived us in God's heart: EVERY ONE OF US IS A LOVE CHILD, CONCEIVED IN LOVE, FORMED IN LOVE, NURTURED IN LOVE.
God is faithful to us today! If we thoughtfully contemplate the days of our lives, we can clearly see God's hand in every event. Because each person who comes into our lives is sent to us by God. Each person who challenges us, loves us, betrays us, encourages us comes to us so that we can rise or fall, and learn and grow from everything and everyone. Even though we may have periods when we are unfaithful to God or unwilling to come to God, God never turns away from us. Our lives are shot through with God's mercy.
Mystic and visionary Julian of Norwich lived in a tempestuous period when England was devastated by the plague known as the Black Death and wars such as peasant revolts devastated lives. People came to her in great sorrow over these external events and over their own internal conflicts, mistakes, and sins. She said "If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love."
God loves us tomorrow, especially that day in tomorrow when Death comes to us. We know that when we die we will finally, totally have a perfect relationship with our loving Parent. But what does that mean? How can we limited beings, limited by time and our flawed perceptions, understand what that will be like?
Theologian Marcus J. Borg says honestly - and faithfully - "So there is an afterlife, and, if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death.
We die into God. What more that means I do not know. But that is all I need to know."
God, our Perfect Parent, is faithful to us yesterday, today, and tomorrow - and always. That is all we need to know and believe and hunger for so we can be loved and healed.