Day 24:: Setting the Example of Debt Free Living

She lays down among lavender, polka dots, and pink and asks for love as is nap time routine: "can I snuggle with your hair?"

I lean closer and she smiles sweet satisfaction holding gently this extension of me. 

I look at her soft curving cheeks, ivory and cream, and how her eyelashes curl up in copper-tinted layers of praise. I love her ski-jump nose and her widows peak, and how all the baby hairs along it shine purest gold. 

Then I remember it, and search for it, asking her to look towards the light washing in from the window. And there it is, just to the left of the black, standing out in all her ocean blue, her one little island eye-freckle.

She glances back at me and reflects my grin and settles happy in her sleepy face. 

I stroke her blonde wisps and smile adoration. My thoughts leave her eye-freckle-island to the lunch remnants that needs to be put away, the dishes and crumbs and words that need working, and nap time is precious and rare and limited. "I'll stay with you one more minute, okay?"

She grins bursting light and boldly requests, all fingers of her right hand outstretched, "five more minutes?"

Her island shimmers so I nod her joy complete and stay and watch as waves of sleepy wash it out of sight behind eyelids heavy and sweet. 

I stay, caressing the soft chub of her hand, not so baby anymore, but growing evermore long and lean.

And the words of a king, a man after God's own heart, pound in my spirit because my hand has long been clenched, but I see it now as it rests, open. 

"I will not offer sacrifices to the Lord that cost me nothing."

These little girls often ask me for love now and I too often reply "later... in a few minutes... tomorrow... maybe next week..."

They know later costs me nothing. They know my now is treasured. 

I don't move my hand. 

Now is all I have to offer, all I have to give. This time is all I can spend. How I spend my time is how I spend my treasure. 

And where my treasure is... 

I feel the cost of spending my time-treasure at nap time, after bed time... every second bearing increasing weight as the cost stacks high and irretrievable. Once a moment is gone it is spent and can never be spent again. 

My heart is in my hand. I see the unspeakable wealth of these precious, rare, limited moments being intentionally given, given, given ... and isn't this the only way to save any life at all? 

I tuck her under soft colored cotton and He speaks it to me gently because He knows it pierces deep: you have been teaching your children to live a lifestyle of love-debt.

You try to spend what you don't have. 

In the name of patience and responsibility and what is necessary I regularly assure, offer, promise tomorrow-time, later-time that isn't guaranteed. 

"I'll read you that chapter later... I'll come play in a few minutes... maybe we can do that next week..."

I assume I'll have the time and often don't. 

The love-debt adds up and my soul feels the weight. 

Debt is a burden I don't want to pass on. I want to teach my children to spend their precious treasure wisely and cheerfully and selflessly without assuming they know what will happen tomorrow. 

Tomorrow cannot be borrowed and therefore costs me nothing. That is why I so readily offer it. 

The children know this. I see them watching, learning from me.

I will not offer sacrifices to the Lord that cost me nothing.

God so loved that He gave... 

This is the sacrifice I long to give. I sit long and hold her hand. 

Now. Spent. As worship. 

And the more I give away, the wealthier I become. 

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship."

~Romans 12:1