Singing Praises

Tonight as I was making supper and the kids were playing outside I was singing along to some praise and worship music. I stopped singing to think about what it might be like when we get to heaven, will we even sing with words? Words never seem like enough to come close to expressing who God is and what He does in our lives. I thought maybe we will sing praises with no words, just letting our hearts speak without the constraint of language. This led to wondering what our Father thinks when He hears us now, on this broken planet with our simple means of expression. At first I thought that maybe He sees us and looks down with condescention, like "oh, that's a nice try kids, but I've heard so much better..."

And then I had this flash of my children hugging me and telling me that I'm the best mom ever. Or showing me something that they made just for me. Today Shelly spent a big chunk of time working on cutting little bits of paper and gluing them together into a big glob of sticky scraps. And then she said, "This is for you, Mom." Does it matter what it looks like? To her it does, but not to me. When the kids want to tell me a story that makes no sense at all does it matter that there's no literary revelation at the end of the story? No. It matters that they love me and want to share their creative ideas. They want to share their hearts. And through those moments God has shown me that my singing doesn't matter, my heart does. Singing is my way of reaching up and saying, "See? I love you!" Even if He has heard something a million times prettier than my voice, what He hears from me is my feeble attempt at showing Him my love. In my attempts to get the kids to make "nicer" artwork, they've taught me that the way it turns out really doesn't matter.

Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path.
~ Proverbs 23:19