Happy, Healthy, but Most of all Love Jesus

When I was pregnant, every night Main Man and I would pray for Little Man.  We would pray for lots of stuff.  However, every night I would end the prayer with "Lord, let him be happy, healthy but most of all love Jesus."  I figure with these three things Little Man will have a great life.  

Little Man is a happy kid.  He loves to laugh, to explore, to enjoy life.  Where ever we take him we hear, "He is such a happy baby."  Today when I picked him up from nursery at church the workers said, "We love it when we see him arrive.  He is just such a great baby."  We know we are spoiled.  He is easy going and content with life.  However, he is high energy.  He plays hard and loves hard.  He may not always be this way but we will cherish it while it lasts.  

For the most part he is a healthy kid.  I mean we have taken him to a neurosurgeon, dermatologist and his pediatrician in his short 8 months of life, but he has come back negative on all of my crazy worries.  He has had one double ear infections.  We fight the occasional cold.  However, he has not been sick like some of the other kids his age.  So far he has no disabilities.  We also know this could change and we will count our blessings while they last.  

This week he learned to clap. Which further goes to show just how happy he can be.  I was trying to get him to eat solids this week, which he hates.  He is crying and all together upset.  When I get him to eat I bite I proudly declare, "Yay, buddy.  Yay, Lovebug."  To which he starts clapping while he is crying.  Adorable and pitiful all at the same time.  He is clapping at everything good these days.  

Can I please watch a movie?  Don't mind the wet sport on the pants, mom.  I just dumped the cat's water on myself.    Hey, life is messy as a kid.

When we go to church on Sunday we keep him with us for the music.  Then we put him in the nursery for the sermon.  Then we get him back out for the last songs.  He loves music and loves being part of the experience.  He has always loved the time with the music even while he was in the womb.  Moving and shaking through the whole thing.  However, today was the first time he could clap along with the music.  

So there we are in church.  Little Man in my arms facing the stage.  We are singing one of my favorite songs, Oh How He Loves.  It talks about just how much God loves us each.  My favorite line is, "He is jealous for me.  Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy."  I love this word picture, the idea of His love being so strong it bends me.  I love that His love is so strong it is a force to be reckoned with.  I am singing along with the song and then it happens.

Little Man joins in with clapping and signing.  There he is in my arms, clapping like he gets it.  Singing along in his adorable baby voice.  Baa Baas filling the air.  My heart burst with joy and pride.  I mean there he is singing along like he gets it.  Of course, he does not.  However, he is participating in this with us.  

(Here is the song in case you have never heard it before.  How He Loves Us by The David Crowder Band)

I felt like I got a little glimpse of just how much God loves us.  I mean I love him so much, I can not even express.  Then Little Man goes and participates in the most important thing in my life, my faith.  I could not have been prouder.  He did it on his own accord.  It was not something we have told him or taught him.  He just felt the need to do so.

All I could think was, this must be how God feels about us when we willing chose to follow Him.  He must stand there like a proud parent staring down at us with His heart bursting with pride.  How much He must just find joy and eat it up, our loving Him.  

My faith is important to me.  I don't do it because I feel like I have to I do it because I want to.  Now that I have a small glimpse of what God is like when I do it because I want to, I treasure my faith a little more.