Collecting Sea Shells for My Daughter

This is from my Established in Grace blog post

___________________________

 

 

The sand is warm beneath my feet as we walked toward the ocean’s edge. The water crashing and rushing up the shore toward us. I feel the happiness of my son, Edmund, as he laughs at the waves and ocean that he’s been to eager to see. I mention to my mother-in-law, “Next year maybe we will have two children!” I think of our daughter and achingly miss her, even though I’ve never met her or seen her face. So I decide to collect sea shells for her each day while on vacation. Special ones that make me think of her.

As I scan the beach, looking through the waves and buried in the sand I know why I am doing this. It isn’t just so that she can enjoy it once she is home (although that is true) it is because I want to do something for her to let her know that I miss her, love her, and am thinking and praying for her even before she comes to us. Jesus whispers to my heart, It’s like Me.

  I’m preparing a house for you. It’s not because I don’t have other things to do. It is because I am so in love with you, so filled with love for you, that I am achingly eager to do something to show you how much I love you, miss you, and can’t wait for you to be here with Me. And I’m floored. Jesus loves me like that? He’s antsy-eager to have me with Him, so much that He’s building me a house? He’s not just building it to give me somewhere to stay when I get to heaven, but He’s building it to show His love?

Adoption is truly making me hear God in a new way. Things, that maybe I always have known, but now are so much more real to my heart.

So now, as I collect sea shells for my little girl, I am reminded of Jesus’ love for me. For you. For all of us. He’s crazy about you. Can’t wait to return to bring you home so He’s building you a home in heaven, one He knows you will love, and as He builds each piece, His heart is pouring out in love at each step. A love so deep we can’t imagine it but when we see our homes He has built we will get a new glimpse of it.