I was on a bit of a rampage yesterday. It was not a cleaning frenzy. Instead, I was leaving notes around the house reminding a certain family member that he is loved. Some Moms do this consistently with daily lunch notes or other methods. I decided on the full court press. I was feeling it and wanted him to know.
I left notes in his room, in his basketball shoes, in the pantry. I co-opted every screen in the house with a selection of “You are Loved” wallpapers. There was the note on the bathroom mirror near his Axe hair cream: “Did you know that God loves you so much that he knows the number of hairs on your head? Axe Him!” (I’m not too proud to say that I did a selfie LOL.) The note near a window that he sometimes likes to escape out of when mad: “FYI. Neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation -- including this window – can separate you from the love of God.” The note under his pillow with my string of pearls, “Guess what. YOU are the pearl of greatest treasure.”
Oh my goodness, he is. A pearl. How does he not know that? Some of us get that we are loveable without much convincing. I’m like that. Others of us are naturally more suspicious that we can be loveable without doing something to deserve it. Some need to hear it over and over again until it penetrates. I think I used to think he wasn’t listening. Now I think some people just have a thin understanding of this and when they get bumped or bruised by life, it’s like starting over again. We all learn at different paces and have different thresholds for the reps we require. Some of us need to hear the same message in several different ways. Cheap flattery won’t get it done – the suspicious among us have radar for that – but it’s always appropriate to BE that someone who reminds the people we love that they are Beloved.
I’m not suggesting my full note assault is parenting to model. It was a little over the top for one 24 hour period. In fact I knew it was by the time we got to the written out mealtime prayer, which was opened belatedly. By mid meal we were all in happy laughter, and the time for blessing our meal was passed. One of the boys tried to humor me by reading though the noise, until the boy it was intended for asked if he could read it instead. It was kind of too long for the moment, but we all tuned in for the punch line: “Love never fails.”
Someone you love needs to hear that today. Remind them. Then remind them again. Get a singing telegram if you have to. Every rep counts.