The darndest things

“When we pray, he is so close to us that he may as well be leaning over the edge of heaven and bending down to hear. His presence through his Holy Spirit literally surrounds you as you pray. His eyes are fixed on your face, on every word you say and on every expression you make. Can you imagine how the angels marvel over our boredom when we pray as they behold our heavenly father listening intently to our every word?”

? BETH MOORE

I love the process of children learning to speak, although sometimes it was sad when our girls learned the correct way to say something.

Like many children, they sputtered “lellow” instead of “yellow,” and my husband and I both felt wistful when they mastered the word. Some early mispronunciations have stayed in our family vocabulary ever since. We still refer to street sweepers as “sweep sweepers,” pancakes as “pampapes” and macaroni and cheese as “macanoonoos.”

We are now thrilled to have two young granddaughters and are totally enjoying our growing conversations with Mary, who is 2. It’s so fun to watch her comprehension and vocabulary increase by the minute, and I love hearing her sweet little voice. She too said “lellow” for a time, but she’s already mastered the correct pronunciation.

The color that she did struggle with for a while was green. If we held up something green, she consistently said “go” because she knew cars could go when the light turned green. She has since figured that out too.

My parents babysat Mary recently, and my mother brought dinner, which included tapioca for dessert. The next morning, I asked Mary what she had for dinner, and first she answered, “chicken.” Then a big smile came across her face and she added, “happyoca!” I will probably always think of Mary and “happyoca” whenever I see tapioca.

Even when Mary doesn’t know the exact word or phrase, she can usually communicate her meaning by using gestures or other words. For example, once I went upstairs to get something, and when I turned around, she was right behind me. I was surprised because I thought she was still downstairs with my husband.

I asked her how she got upstairs, and she proudly proclaimed, “Mary tall,” which I realized meant that she had come up the stairs all by herself.

I love hearing Mary’s voice, I love watching her facial expressions when she speaks, and I hang on her every word. I also love listening to Aubrey, Mary’s 6-month-old sister, who already likes to chat in her own way.

I thought about my love for Mary and hearing whatever she wants to talk about, and my love for Aubrey and listening to every little coo and laugh. I often lean forward so I don’t miss anything they say or any sound they make.

If I love hearing about anything and everything that matters to them, imagine how much our perfect heavenly father wants to hear everything that is on our mind. He watches every expression, he cares about our every thought, and he listens to every word.

God even knows the things that matter to us that we don’t know exactly how to communicate.

How incredible it is to know that everything that matters to us matters to God, because we matter to him.

And you can quote me on that.