Making My Crown

My boys are up late tonight. We got home from church about half an hour ago, and Noah is making me a crown. My birthday was this last week, and tomorrow will be our family birthday party.

So he cut out the jagged pieces from construction paper, and came up behind me to "measure me" with the paper before he taped it into the right size circle for my head. And now he is decorating it.

Children know what is important, don't they? It is the people in their lives! And they take joy in creating something special for those they love, without self-consciousness as to whether it will be "beautiful" or not, and without doubt as to whether it will be received with joy and full appreciation.

May I live like that for the triune God! I will give Him the best I can give Him, and not doubt that He will see it as beautiful and worth His gratitude.

Can you imagine the God of the Universe being grateful for something that I can give Him? What can I possibly give Him that He couldn't do for Himself, or get in much better quality from someone else?

But He is delighted by my love lived out as a daily gift. That "THEREFORE, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your only logical response to what He has given you" is my gift back to Him, not unlike Noah's crown for me.

Just as I adore my son Noah's gifts to me, which are symbols of his love for me, and just as I adore Noah, because there is no one else like him, and he is mine . . . so God adores me and appreciates my little gifts and my love.

Imagine that.