Oo uh me!?!

Ezra is growing up.  More and more everyday he is leaving behind toddlerness and becoming a preschooler.  He says things that he knows are funny and loves loves loves to hear us laugh at his crazy antics!  He is a serious ball of energy.  Never walking.  Anywhere.  Always skipping, galloping or leaping. One day he traveled all the way from the kitchen to the bathroom, through the living room, using a two footed jump.  Think: standing long jump, over and over and over and over again.  He is in constant motion.  And he gives the best hugs and kisses.

For the last several months he has been spontaneously telling me, "Mama, I uh oo!" That is cleft palatese for "I love you!"  And his timing is always impeccable!  We have turned it into a game with I love you's going back and forth for minutes at a time.  But the other day in the van, his response to me brought tears to my eyes.

He yelled, "Mama, I uh oo!"  And I responded, "I love you!"  And then his sweet little voice asked, "Oo uh me!?"  .....You love me?....  His response was purely innocent with nothing implied but it caught me and there were tears in my eyes as I answered him, "Yes, Ezra, Mama loves you more than you will ever know!" 

Ezra has been so insecure in his attachment, oh, since about April when we traveled to Kyrg for our first bonding trip with Asa.  He has been clingy and needs constant reassurance that we are there.  He has gone from a blossoming independent preschooler right back to a toddler who needs you to do everything for him now.  And I could not help but read into his question, "You love me?" and see some of those insecurities peeking out, asking, for real, "You really love me?"

And then I thought about my relationship with God the Father.  And how many times I ask, in my heart and with my actions, "You love me?"  Oh, it is hard to look at my life and how sinful I am and really believe that God loves me.  It is hard to rest in that.  To feel secure in that.  BUT, Thank God that His love does not depend on my faithfulness, on my belief, or on my actions.  His love for me rests on the cross and Christ dying for my sin and rising again on the third day.  His love for me is wider and higher and deeper than I will ever know. 

Matthew 7...9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!