“LORD, show me your love, and save me as you have promised.” Psalm 119:41 (NCV)”

We were planted at the end of the driveway beside a giant mud puddle left by a cloud-burst of rain. My son’s pockets bulged with a lumpy collection of stones, and his eyes beamed with 4-year-old delight on that ordinary morning long ago.

“Watch, Mommy, watch!” He begged as he reached into his pocket and flung a rock into the filthy water. “Listen to the sound of that plop!” He squealed when the stone landed in the inky mire with a melodious plunk.

I nodded my head and clapped my hands. And he reached into his pocket for another rock.

Our little game continued with soaring stones and happy shrieks, sky-high splashes and murky splatters.

Toss. Plunk. Applaud.

Splash. Laugh. Repeat.

There was laundry to fold and toilets to scrub, but for a few moments, I perched beside that puddle and cheered for my son as if he were throwing pitches in the World Series rather than tossing rocks into a pool of mud.

“I love the way you’re loving me today, Mommy,” he said with a giddy grin.

I returned his sentiment with a smile of my own and celebrated a silent victory. For weeks, I’d been talking with our five children about the personal nature of my love.

“I love each of you equally,” I’d assured them. “But I express my love for you differently.”

I’d grown tired of their comparisons and complaints, the “no-fairs” and the “what-about-me’s?”

Just because I took my daughter out for ice cream didn’t mean she was my favorite.

Just because I rocked the baby each night didn’t mean I loved her more.

“Pay attention,” I’d challenged. “And you’ll begin to notice the special things I do to show my love for you.”

Shortly after I’d issued that challenge to my own children, I found myself sitting in a coffee shop with a handful of close friends. Eventually, our conversation turned to our relationships with the Lord.

One woman marveled at how He’d been speaking to her through dreams, while another shared about His inexplicable provision in a time of need. A third recounted how God had used a worship song to bring calm to a chronic worry.

Although these testimonies should have spurred my faith, they quietly stirred my doubts. If God loved me too, why wasn’t He loving me like that?

As I drove home that afternoon, the words I’d been repeating in my own home echoed in my mind. “I love you equally, but I express my love for you differently.”

Humbly, I realized I was missing the unique love story God was writing for me because I expected it to look like someone else’s script.

In the days to come, I asked the Holy Spirit to open my eyes to notice God’s personal pursuit of my heart.

I turned Psalm 119:41 into my daily prayer — “LORD, show me your love, and save me as you have promised.”

As my prayer was answered, I began to pay attention to the one-of-a-kind ways God was expressing His love for me.

I took note of the way He wooed me with a blazing sunrise or wowed me with a starry sky. I spotted His embrace in the warmth of a well-timed word, and I delighted in His affection as He extended His strength in my weakness.

Not surprisingly, the more I noticed the intimate and endless ways God was loving me, the more secure I felt in His love.

I don’t know how God is wooing your heart today, dear friend. But I have no doubt that He is.

God’s love for all of us is impartial, but His pursuit of each of us is personal.

Let’s refuse to doubt God’s love and choose to delight in it instead. Let’s stop comparing and start noticing.

As we pay attention to God’s one-of-a-kind wooing, we just might find ourselves echoing the words of a mud-splattered 4-year-old: “I love the way you’re loving me!”

Dear Jesus, help me recognize the ways You’re expressing Your love for me today. I want to delight in Your wooing and be aware of Your pursuing. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY

Romans 5:5, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (NIV)

RELATED RESOURCES

Whether you’re a full-time mom who has a list of 17 errands to do or the working mom whose day job is just as tough as your mom job … or the brand-new mama who is experiencing the pain and joy of motherhood for the very first time — Karen Ehman and Ruth Schwenk’s Pressing Pause: 100 Quiet Moments Where Moms Can Meet with Jesus is for you. Grab a copy today for yourself or someone you know and love.

CONNECT

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REFLECT AND RESPOND

What keeps you from recognizing God’s unique expressions of love? What’s one thing you could do to pay attention to His wooing this week?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

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