I Love the Way You’re Loving Me

Welcome to the Overflow! Whether you’re an old friend or a new one, I’m glad you’re here. This is a place where faith is spilled and souls are filled. I hope you’ll make yourself at home and stay a while.  If you like what you find, feel free to sign up on the side bar to subscribe to my blog and I’ll send you a trickle of inspiration in your in-box now and then.

Better yet, we could meet face to face!  I’m scheduling speaking engagements for 2019 & 2020.  I’d be delighted to bring a message of encouragement to a ministry event near you. (If you’d like to know more, contact me at overflow@aliciabruxvoort.net)

Today I’m over at Proverbs 31 talking about a little girl who wanted her Daddy to chase her and a mom who was learning about the depths of God’s love.  If you haven’t had a chance to read it, you can find it here.  But before you go, I’d love to tell you what I learned years ago from a dirt-loving preschooler, a murky mud-puddle and a handful of dusty rocks…

We were plunking stones in the giant mud-puddle that had been left by the morning rain at the end of our driveway.

He was sporting a polka-dot collection of mud splats up and down his spindly legs and a four-year-old smile wide across his sun-kissed cheeks.

He tossed and I watched.

He sang and I clapped.

And together we marveled… at the sound of the satisfying plop when rock met murky water; at the sight of the artistic ripples that stretched across the brown sludge; at the spray of delicate droplets that shot into the air like confetti flung heavenward.

“Watch this, Mom!” my preschooler yelped as he swung around in a circle and sent a stone soaring through the air.

“That was amazing,” I exclaimed with exaggerated applause.

He nodded in agreement; then flashed me an impish grin. His green eyes grew wide and for a sweet moment, he held my gaze. “I love the way you’re loving me today,” he said with four-year-old sincerity.

I stared at my littlest boy and laughed out loud; then I pulled him close in a one-armed hug. This boy of mine knew his mama didn’t love mud, but she loved him. And those playful moments on the edge of that puddle were proof of my love.

My preschooler  skipped off to find another rock, and I sat there on the driveway and thought about my son’s simple statement: “I love the way you’re loving me…”

For weeks, I’d been talking with our five children about the personal nature of my love. I’d assured them that my love for each was the same, but my expressions of love look different.

Just because I took my daughter out for ice cream didn’t mean she was my favorite.

Just because I rocked the baby long into the night didn’t mean I loved her more.

Just because I went to my son’s baseball game didn’t mean I cared about him most.

I was tired of the comparisons and the complaints, the “no-fair’s” and the “what about me’s?” So, I’d begun to point out the little things I did to speak love to each of my children’s hearts.

“Pay attention,” I’d challenged. “And you’ll begin to see…”

And as I sat there listening to the plink and plunk of dusty rocks in a mudpuddle,  I realized that the lesson I’d been trying to teach my own children was the lesson God had been relentlessly teaching me, too.

God loves his children equally, but He captures our hearts uniquely.

God  doesn’t want us to doubt his love; He wants us to delight in it.

He doesn’t want us to rival for his affection; He wants us to relish in it.

I’d spent far too long watching the way God was wooing the people around me and missing my own beautiful love story with the King of Kings. But, like my dirt-loving four-year-old, I was learning to change the question I asked.

We don’t need to ask God if He loves us. He’s already answered that through Jesus Christ with a resounding YES  (John 3:16).

We simply need to ask God how He’s wooing us.

“How are you loving me now, Lord?”

When we ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to God’s wooing, we begin to notice the powerful and personal ways He is pursuing our hearts day by day.

And as we encounter God’s wild and whimsical embrace–from the depths of our mud puddles or the heights of our mountain tops–we find ourselves watching for wonders of his love rather than wondering if we are loved.

We trade our feelings of discontent and doubt for the assurance that we are cherished and championed.

And, chances are, as we learn to delight in God’s intimate affection, we’ll find ourselves echoing the words of a four-year-old I once knew:

“I love the way you’re loving me!”

Thanks for spending time with us at the Overflow today. Before you go, let us know how God has been loving you lately. And know without a doubt that you are loved and prayed for here.