I lay there with both of his little arms around my neck, cheek on mine, knee in my belly and sleeping breath all over my face. Suddenly I felt something in my hand and I remembered I held this: a crinkled up piece of tracing paper with a few blue scribbles…my son’s gift to me before naptime. “I made it for you”; he ran up to tell me. My heart that these kids have been softening filled with warmth, and a genuine smile filled my face, and his came to match mine thereafter, and I told him I loved it and I meant it. I’d been holding it in my hand now for a long time. I really did. And, oh, in the nature of perfect revelation (the kind that only God can give) my mind filled with truth: this is how God feels about my sorry little offerings…my often misguided and mistake words and works offered up to Him. My things I make for him, no matter how crinkled and juvenile they may be, He delights in them. He treasures them in His big daddy heart. And yesterday when my beautiful and oldest treasure-child came up to me and hugged me and told me “mommy we love your cooking, even though it isn’t good.” I just filled with joy because, my goodness isn’t it just the love that counts? ❤️ I would never in a MILLION years expect my children to be perfect, I would never pour guilt and shame on their imperfections either. Why do we imagine God would love us any less, why do we live trapped in the fear that we must live in perfection? He JUST loves us, He wants our hearts not our attempts to earn His approval and I think I’ll keep the crinkled paper as a humbling reminder…