My baby girl

My baby girl, all of four years old, looked up at me with a tear-streaked face and whispered, “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

How can you look at a sweet face and get mad? When I took time to look at my girls’ faces, I never could get mad at them.

We had a sunken den which was one of the most dangerous because most people tripped going from the kitchen into the den, no matter how many times we’d warn people the step was there. And there Amanda was, sprawled out on the step with her little knee skinned and a cut on her hand from the ceramic bowl my Mom had made me for my birthday. It was one in a set of four and the last ceramics she’d made. (There is still a rooster in the store room ready to be painted for the past 24 years.) Manda knew how important that bowl was to me because we’d had a discussion about her using it for her chili that night. She so much wanted to put away her plastic baby dishes and be a big girl, eating from bowls just like the rest of us.

Now, as I looked at that precious face, my heart just melted. She was trying not to cry about the cut on her hand because, to her, the more important thing was she’d broken Mommy’s bowl.

I scooped her up and hugged her tightly, wiping her tears and kissing her little hand. Tears stream down my cheeks right now just thinking about it. How trusting God is to put a tiny life under my authority. I could have yelled and screamed putting the bowl above my daughter in importance. Praise God, I did not. Of course, there were times when I did yell and scream. This time, though, I am so thankful that I let her know she was much more important than any old bowl.

If I can be this way with my daughter, how much more God is to His children. How much He desires to scoop us up and let us know how very important we are to Him. How precious we are to Him. So much so, that He paid a huge price for us. With my daughter in my arms, I cannot possibly contemplate giving her up to die for anyone else. Yet, God did…Love so amazing and so divine that it is not understood by humans without His help.

This is what I am thankful for.

I could name hundreds of things that God has given me, but there is nothing so precious as the gift of His Son.

Father, I lift up my thanksgiving to You, with lifted hands and open heart, I pour myself out as a living sacrifice. I pray that You will give a beautiful holy day to all Your children. In Jesus name, Amen.