If I Hear "Mama" One More Time

In the last 20 minutes, I've literally heard the beckoning of "Mama" 38 times. Literally. To keep my sanity, I started counting. As I lay my youngest down to sleep, I pondered the huge milestones we'd met this week of potty training and weaning all intermingled with the frustration and just plain exhaustion of, "Mama, Mama, Mama." 

In my heart, I cried out to the Lord to strengthen, encourage, and bless me for the rest of this day and all that it still held... And for the many, many "Mamas" that had yet to be said.  

In those quiet moments He whispered into my heart, "I love to hear you call out to me- Father, Father!"  

And he does. 

He loves me so deeply that He yearns to hear me call out to him, to invite him into each moment, each circumstance. He wants to lavish his love upon me, to answer my prayers, encourage my heart, provide for my every need, and comfort my brokenness.

He sent his son to die on the cross so that I have the privilege of uttering his name and being in constant relationship with him. He NEVER tires of me. Of you. Of any of it.  

I'm offering up this paradigm shift not as a way to guilt us all into feeling terrible that we get worn down from hearing "Mama" 5000 times a day. I'm sharing it because sometimes we are overdue for a shift in our perspective. We need a new set of lenses for our worn out frames. 

God desires to hear his name called by his children because of his profound LOVE for us. He is the author and perfector of love. He embodies the definition offered to us of love by Paul in 1 Corinthians. He loves us patiently and selflessly, with kindness and forbearance. 

He offers everything he is to us and beckons us to ask him for it all.

Because we are human, we will never be able to love anyone as perfectly as God loves us, but we can pray that we can adopt his perspective and have eyes to see as he does. 

He sees our value.  

He sees the heart behind our cries.  

He sees our love for him . 

He sees our need of him.  

He sees our insufficiency and dependence on him.  

We can pray that he would give us eyes to see our children as he sees us, ears to hear their noises as joyful and precious, and a mind that is being renewed and transformed, as we seek him. Every. Single. Day. 

His perfect, eternal perspective can shift ours so that we may behold how sacred every single cry of "Mama" is. 

If we adopted a God-perspective of our little ones, we would view their lifetime of "Mamas". We would see the bellows that bombard us now begin to deminish one day. We would see the days ahead that would be hallow of little cries for "Mama" as our children head off into adulthood. We would know that months or years could pass before we would hear our children truly cry out "Mama" again to us- earnestly needing our love or desiring our attention. We would remember the sobering possibility of the devastating heartache of never hearing "Mama" from that little voice again.  

"Mama" can be exhausting, depleting, frustrating, and downright maddening at times. But "Mama" is gift- hands down, overwhelming, mind-blowing gift. Even in the messes, chaos, and small mutinies, "Mama" is sacred, and as we seek God in the midst of those challenging days, let's always remember to ask our Father to help us cherish every single "Mama" as he cherishes us. Let's always remember to have a God-sized perspective.