You Belong...With Me

The fascinating Baby Game started minutes after Joy Johanna made her entrance into our home. Studying the newly created, soft little human, the game began: “Who does she look like?” and, “I think Joy has Jonathan’s nose.” Since then, it has continued: “I just can’t get over how much she looks like her Grandma Lloyd!” “Do you think she looks more like you or her dad?” “I just can’t figure out who she looks like!” “Her mouth is definitely her Daddy’s.” 

Mama and Daughter

Amidst the delightful quest which The Baby Game offers of trying to figure out who our daughter resembles, we know one thing for sure: she belongs to us. 

And the older she gets, the more she starts to look like us. Soon, I’m sure, she will begin to act like us too! (The parts we like as well as the parts we don’t appreciate seeing replicated, no doubt!)

On Sunday I looked across the church auditorium and caught sight of a very familiar little person whom my Mama was holding. In one feasting glance I took in her little round face and big blue eyes peeking over chubby fists wedged in between her gums. A thrill of ownership went through me involuntarily. Because she’s MINE! 

I see myself in her. I see my husband in her. When we look at her we know she’s “ours”. She belongs to us, to our family. What fierce love a mother-heart can contain as she beholds her child!

I wonder...if this is how God feels about us.

I wonder what He thinks and feels as His eyes scan across the rooms, the counties, the countries of the spinning earth. He looks, and then His eyes stop. This one. “This one belongs to ME.” I wonder what He feels, as He sees His own children, one by one. His offspring. I wonder if He plays the “game” we like to play, looking for ourselves in our young. I can imagine Him exclaiming, “She’s got My love!” “Oh, look at him. His eyes. They see what I see!” “Wow, she just did what I would do.” “Look at the way he spoke the truth in love. Ahh! Just like Me.”

From Pixabay

To me, that’s a pretty special imagination.

He sees me and He claims me as His own child! The more I grow spiritually, the more He sees Himself in me!

As I look at the glory of the Lord, guess what? I start to look like Him! “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Cor. 3:18, KJV)

He loves us and He loves to watch us grow. He likes when He sees Himself in us.

I belong in His family.

The sun is fading in the sky as I hold a picture of my daughter beside a picture of me as a baby. Evening twilight is a good time for reflection. It’s a good time to belong. Scooping up my daughter, I kiss her little cheeks. “Joy Johanna. You belong...with me.”