Several months ago, I asked my daughter to draw a picture of what she felt God was saying to her. She drew three emojis (yes, she is a tween). A smiley face, a heart, and a thumbs up.
I smiled inside and thought – she gets it.
Children see the heart of God so clearly—God is not looking down his nose at us, waiting for us to mess up. When we wake up in the morning, he’s looking at us with a huge smile on his face. His heart is bursting with love. And he’s giving us a double thumbs up. I can just hear him saying, “You’ve got this, girl!”
For many years of my life, I saw God as someone who was hard to please. I saw myself as not measuring up. If I was doing well, he was happy with me. If I messed up, surely he was disappointed. The last ten years he has been revealing his heart and his nature to me and I have found such a place of security with him. His posture toward us simply does not waver.
One of the things I sense God saying to me regularly is, Daughter, I am well pleased with you. In the beginning, it was hard for me to imagine God saying this to me. I saw all of my flaws and sinful ways up close and personal. I had to debate whether this was God, or whether I was imagining it.
God is well pleased with us. We moms need to know this because the enemy is forever throwing our shortcomings in our face.
Being a mom is so demanding, and we often feel we aren’t doing enough (“Why did I wait that long to take my child in for that strep test? What kind of mother am I, anyway?”). In our exhaustion, we raise our voice when it wasn’t called for. In an effort to avoid a meltdown, we cave at the grocery store and walk out with Frosted Flakes instead of organic oats. In the midst of it all, the enemy of our souls whispers, “You’re not enough. You’ve messed up. You really ought to try harder.”
But the lover of our souls gently tells us, “You are enough. It’s okay to make mistakes. Lean into me and let me help you. Let’s do this together.”
On your best day, and on your worst day, your heavenly Father is smiling at you. He’s loving you, and he’s giving you a big thumbs up. He’s saying “You’ve got this, girl.” And when we do mess up – which we WILL – he’s there with compassion and kindness to help us clean up our mess. All the while smiling and singing a happy song over us.
The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17
Reflection question
God wants you to know how he feels about you. When you can find a quiet moment? (It doesn’t have to be with coffee and a journal — bubble baths are a great place to meet with God!) Find some time and ask him these two questions:
- “God, how do you see me?”
- “How do you feel about me?”
Holli Aparicio is a wife and homeschooling mom to Lydia (13) and Sofia (11). She is passionate about equipping others to encounter God in prayer and to learn to hear his voice. She loves the mountains, the ocean, blue skies, and sunny days (which is why she enjoys taking frequent vacations in the winter ☺). She lives with her family in Maple Grove, MN.