SMILE BACK

“You can have the other words: chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it.” — Mary Oliver

Zephaniah 3:17-20
Isaiah 49:14-16
1 John 3:1-3

Jenny hunches over the crib, using her hands to spread her eyes wide so they’re comically large. “I’m gonna give myself wrinkles before my time,” she whispers as she contorts her eyebrows up and stretches her cheeks into a fish-face, wiggling her fingers with her thumbs in her ears.

Her little one, lying on a blanket beneath her, just blinks. Weeks and weeks of making crazy faces and embarrassing baby sounds, and yet still no response. “Anybody in there?” she coos after her fourth attempt at peek-a-boo of the morning.

The baby looks up. All of a sudden noticing something odd about her wild gestures, he cocks his head to the side curiously. And slowly, slowly, a toothless smile spreads across his face. He gurgles.

Finally, some recognition! This small expression of joy on her child’s face is nothing, though, compared to the deep and lasting joy Jenny is experiencing in this moment — a confirmation of the unbreakable bond between a parent and their one-of-a-kind creation.

God sees His children the same way. He expresses His love for us in the smiles of strangers when we’re feeling isolated, a breathtaking sunset on a long commute home, a still morning in the midst of a family crisis. He orchestrates conversations with others at just the right time; when we couldn’t picture how it was all going to work out, it simply does, unfolding better than we could have planned.

What a relief that someone bigger than us is working on our behalf: someone who knows the hairs on our head, and when we rise up and lay down. One of the strongest forces in mankind, a mother’s love for her child, pales in comparison to the way the Creator feels about His creation. And He’s telling us, every day. Sometimes through a sunset, sometimes through a contract. But always for our good.

Can you see the way that God is smiling at you, or are you missing it? Do you feel loved enough by God to smile back? What might God be doing in your life to get your attention?

Hollis