Dear God, thank you. That’s it. That’s the prayer. I know my prayers have the tendency to start with, “I want, I wish, I hope.” But that’s the thing. God’s plan is greatest. He already knows the wants of my heart. I don’t have to tell him. Of course, he wants to hear from you. He wants you to trust him with your biggest fears and greatest dreams. But just like a parent, spouse, or co-worker… he probably likes to hear “thank you” once in awhile.
I spend a lot of time watching my daughter. Just her, doing her own thing. Her everyday life. And she teaches me more than I ever thought I needed to know. She instills in me the drive to be a better person. To be the best example of God’s grace that I can muster up. Her last doctors appointment was tough. She is happy and healthy but she was definitely not pleased by the time we left that appointment. She was crying in the car and then suddenly she wasn’t. *which is always scary* so I look in the camera and she is back there holding her stuffed animal. She was looking at it so intently and then suddenly she kissed it and held it tight. And as my heart melted, the Lord filled it with his words. [We love because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19]. It was suddenly so clear, that even on our hardest days. He will wrap us up and show us love. I knew then, that if I was doing nothing else right as a parent… Bryn knows what love is. If you don’t think your kiddos are watching or taking in everything you do… you are wrong. They are watching, they are listening, they are learning. FROM YOU. She knows what love is because we show her what love is. We kiss her boo-boos and hug her every night before bed. And she knew in that moment that she needed a hug, even if it was from her little stuffed ostrich.
With Christmas fast approaching I realize that not everyone knows what it feels like to have someone love them unconditionally. I went back to work last month and the holidays always sting a little because you realize that not all children have a “happy” holiday. It hurts my heart to know that I am sending some babies home to no gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. The Santa they learned all about from me, at school, the one that starts with the letter S. The letter S that makes the sssss sound. They wake up and think they did something wrong because he didn’t leave them anything. But what really keeps me awake at night is knowing that there are children out there that wake up on Christmas morning and don’t have family to tell them that they love them and then talk about why Jesus is the “real reason for the season”. Not all children know what it feels like to be loved on constantly or simply hugged when they need it. Heck a lot of adults don’t even know what that feels like, because they weren’t raised that way. But we are God’s light here on earth. We have to be the ones spreading his love through our actions. We are his feet on the ground. Bryn spread her love to Ollie the Ostrich because she has so many people that are spreading love to her. But not all people are getting that kind of Jesus filled love. So please have grace. Be grace. Spread grace.
Now go home and hug your babies and your families and your dogs. Then go to work and hug your coworkers. Go out to dinner and hug your friends. I know the world we live in may frown upon that right now. But the world we live in could use a serious hug as it is. I’m not here to talk politics, I’m here to tell you that you don’t know what that grouchy person at the store is going through. You don’t know what the road rage filled driver had to deal with this morning. You don’t know what kind of loss your co-worker is suffering through. YOU can be the difference for that person.
If I do nothing else right as a parent… my baby is going to know what love looks like. And if I do nothing else productive today… I’m going to thank God for His blessings and for putting me right where I need to be.
