What Your Heavenly Father Really Wants from You Today: Snuggle-Bug

We eat and smile and storytell our way through this smoldering Sunday afternoon. Sisters, a friend, and little one who insists she is not-so-little-anymore sharing the blessings and humor of life and learning over chicken wraps and tortilla chips.

Then she breaks in, wanting to share her own piece of communion bread. She walks directly to us, her deep chest ache hidden behind the smile she wears and the book she holds close. She received this bread from Him and I sense it, listening before she speaks.

Mom apologizes for the interruption she should know full well doesn't bother us. Disclaimers follow as a signpost that her heart is close as she succinctly explains the context of what she is about to read. This book she treasures tells the story of a girl who has lost God in the midst of doctrine and theology and religious practices. This girl who has long misunderstood some who spoke of Him, until one day she began to see dimly the Light and the Truth they spoke of...

"So that is what they think God is like!" she said to herself. "You can go up close to him whenever you please! How wonderful! If only it might be true!"

~George MacDonald

The Landlady's Master

I can see Him in her tender eyes. Her eyes are beautiful with Him there, her Love that loves her so. The Living Word has spoken a word to her and it overwhelms her. She can't fully think of Him and His love without it affecting her speech. Her words are steady and tone is even but she soul-whispers what He has told her heart in the secret stillness, amazed anew that it might be so. She is gone as quickly as she joined, the need and want and joy to share relieved.

It is so. I affirm it to my observant and listening five year old.

"It is true. We can go up close to Him whenever we please! Just like you can come up close to me and hug me whenever you please." I think of the fearless, unashamed love she pours out on me. How she runs straight to me to fix her bo-bos. How she trusts that somehow being with me makes things better. How she says she "loves to snuggle-bug" with me. How she doesn't hesitate to come close. My space is her space.

She smiles at me full of confidence "I know, mom!"

"I'm glad you know!" I want to hug her in this moment, ache to think of a time when she might not remember this truth because her emotions speak something else, or her circumstances might not be what she would like, or when she might not understand the restrictions I place on her. "I hope you don't grow out of that!"

"Mom," she cocks her head to the side, incredulous that I would make such a statement. "Of course I won't grow out of that!"

A lump swells in my throat now. I don't want to grow out of that either. Faith like a child.

He loves my face like I love my children's faces. Even more so, with a perfect love that my finite heart and mind cannot understand or bear but my Abba says so.

He aches for me to come close.

Oh that it might be true!

It is.

"See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power,

and his arm rules for him.

See, his reward is with him,

and his recompense accompanies him.

He tends his flock like a shepherd:

He gathers the lambs in his arms

and carries them close to his heart;

he gently leads those that have young."

Isaiah 40:10-11