My Life as a COMMA!

This past week my sweet baby girl was at church camp. She returned yesterday! I was fortunate in being able to pick her up from the church when she arrived back home! 

  
Of course, it seemed as if she had grown a FOOT! Even my husband thought so! And there were hugs goodbye to her friends…both new and old…and also to the great adult sponsors who were with her! 

IMMEDIATELY…in the car…she began gushing and talking and telling me how wonderful it was! But one of the most PRECIOUS moments I will ALWAYS remember…is before we were even out of the parking lot… I was driving..and she reached over and grabbed my hand…interlocked her fingers into mine…and looked at me and said, “Oh momma….I’ve missed you soooooooo much!”. WOW…my heart melted. OF COURSE…I had missed her too…but to hear she missed me and was glad to be back and wanted to just hold my hand….well…you can imagine how big my mommy-heart swelled at that moment!!! 

I listened to her tell me about all kinds of things…the games…the fun…the boys…the girls…all of it! I soaked every bit of it into my heart…these moments…this fresh attitude! This is the girl with a heart for God I know and love! (I soaked it in so that when her teenage hormones get to her…they hopefully won’t get the best of ME!) 

She just wanted to go home and sit on her own bed and use her own bathroom!!! Pretty reasonable requests…so I obliged. I took her to her grandparents before I headed back to work for the afternoon. She ran to each of them…and her cousin….and hugged each of their necks! She also slept almost the whole afternoon…so when I saw her again she was refreshed!!

A bit later in the evening…I got to enjoy time with just her in my car on a long ride. She started to open up about what God had done at the camp….in others and in her. My mommy-heart again swelled as I listened to how her heart had been open to him. About what going “ALL IN FOR GOD” meant to her. I listened to what her next steps would be…..and just smiled! Inside and out I was smiling. These are the precious moments I’ll always remember and be thankful for! 

Then….she asked if I had a pen. She grabbed the only one she could find and told me she wanted to get a tattoo!!! And she was drawing on her hand what it would be….. I looked over…and all she had drawn was a triangle. No words. Just a simple triangle. 

I didn’t tell her…But I knew immediately what she was going to tell me…. but I just listened….to her explain it to me..and what it meant to her.

Okay….imagine a triangle ….. and you are at the bottom right corner, your boyfriend is on the bottom left corner…and God is at the top of the Triangle. Now…see the line between you and the boy? That is how far apart you are without you both seeking out God and getting closer to God. But as each of you grow towards God…and seek Him out….you grow closer to each other…because you are closer to GOD. She told me the other bottom corner can be anything….shopping…her phone…or any of her friends! ( and yes…she had to tell me she knows her phone can’t get close to God…but she knows she can put it before God and move away from God and focus more on whatever it is at the bottom edge of the triangle!)

Here is a pic…for those of you like me..who are VISUAL learners!! 

  
I told my sweet girl I loved her explanation. And I’d support a tattoo of a triangle….AFTER she turns 18!!! But I told her the reason I knew about this illustration…is because I used to use this same lesson…when I taught Sunday School to my sophomore girls a LOOOOONG time ago!

She just smiled at me…and I loved this moment too! I have to admit…at first…there was a twang of being sad I wasn’t the one that got to teach this to her first…but then God nudged me and reminded me…HE will place the person in her path when she is ready to hear a lesson…and that person isn’t always going to be me!!! I see that by me being the one to reinforce it though…it made it just that more special in her eyes too!!! I trust you, God….and thank you for knowing better than me!!

As she laid in her bed last night…I prayed over her that this “camp high” would follow her through for a long time! I prayed that her newfound fervor for Christ stay lit in her heart and not wane. I prayed God would allow her to always open up to me and share with me her heart. I thanked Him for all the great moments I’ve had with both my kids in the recent weeks.

I’m loving where my life is right now with my kiddos! They are awesome teenagers and I’m the luckiest mom in the world. To say there is part of my heart that still has a twinge of hurt and wishing I had seen my 3 boys be teenagers…and what wonderful times I would have had with them….doesn’t even begin to express that part of my heart.

I am choosing to know there are moments like this that will always be wonderfully bittersweet…and relish in the what I’ve had…where I’ve come from …..and where I am right now! I love it! ALL of it. And I can honestly say that I wouldn’t….change….a thing!