A Little Boy and His Blankie

I have a word for the things in our home that are worn and broken and dirty.  A word for the dog-eared, scribbled on, tatter-covered books.  A word for a 25 year-old noseless teddy bear.  A word for a filthy chewed on, carried everywhere blankie. 

The word is “loved.”

Nolan has a nigh-night  (blankie).  It is adorable and hilarious how much he loves this nigh-night.  And aside from “Mine!” and “Ow!”, it is the most recognizable word he can speak.  Every morning, he stands up in his crib, throws out his nigh-night, and promptly cries and cries, reaching for this most loved comfort object.  “Nigh-Night!” he yells over and over until Mama or Da comes in to pull him out of his crib and reconnect him to his beloved nigh-night.  We lose nigh-night regularly because of Nolan’s Linus-like attachment to it.  But nigh-night always comes back.  It gets stuck between the crib and the wall.  It gets tucked behind the couch, under Danny’s bed, shoved in the toy bin… 

And I started metaphoring, cause that’s what I do lately, and I thought, maybe this is how God treats us.

We are “loved.” Tattered and worn, fraying at the edges.  He cuddles us, holds us.  He carries us around everywhere, through the dirt and mud.  

We hide from Him often.  We think He abandoned us behind the couch.  We think he left us under the bed.  We lay in a heap in a dark bin alone and scared.

We feel like we need to get tossed in the wash and stay away from Him until we are clean.

But the truth is, He wants to carry us no matter how much we stink or how filthy we are.  And when we are hiding behind the couch, or stuck in the dark toy bin, thinking we have been abandoned, thinking we are alone, He can think of nothing but us, nothing but getting us back in His arms where we belong.

And when I am being dragged through the mud, I usually think that God hates me and doesn’t want anything good to happen to me.  But maybe I am just being “loved.”  Maybe He’s dragging me through the mud because he wants to keep me close, and He can’t bear the thought of me getting lost again. And maybe each stain, each hole, each thread-bare spot is a beautiful reminder of just how loved we really are.