Me, Mine and Ours

About a week ago in my journal, I was writing out some prayers for each of my kids concerning our family. When I got to Jac0b, I prayed for more trust, more love and more bonding. Specifically, that he would begin finding ownership in our relationships and our environment. No longer would we be just parents, but his parents. And no longer would it be the house, but our house; no longer the pool, but my pool. I really couldn’t explain why, but I just knew I wanted to be able to hear that he felt like we were his.

Looking back, just a week later, I can relate it to a few things. Like, how you felt about your first car. You’re no longer getting in the car, it’s my car. And that means you make rules about it (no food in my car!), you’re the one responsible for watching the gas gauge (time to get gas again?!), you’re the one that washes it. I remember one of Scott’s first trucks he faithfully washed and waxed every Saturday. It was his truck. He owned it and loved it.

Or, do you remember the first time you got a boyfriend and he called you “my girlfriend”? Swoon. Or when you got engaged and for the first time you said “my fiance” instead of my boyfriend? Or even, when you first got married and said, “my husband?” So weird, right?! There’s something sacred about naming these things in our lives. It shows a special bond, a special type of ownership to the relationship like none other.

And I so wanted that for Jac0b. I wanted all of us and all the things we consider ours, to be his.

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The other day his friend from down the street knocked on our door after school for Jac0b to come outside and play, but he couldn’t so I whispered behind the door that I was leaving soon and he couldn’t go out. So, Jac0b told his friend, “I can’t come out because my mom is leaving in a few minutes.”

And there it was, the phrase I had not yet heard and just prayed to hear just days before, “my mom.” I still grin even typing it. I love that out of all the possible ones, I heard ownership of our relationship first.

I’m very sure he’s said it before at school and I know others have referred to me as his mom even in front of me. But that was the first time I had heard him say “my mom” to someone else in front of me.

I’m not really sure if he had any other choice of what to call me in the moment. He couldn’t have said, “the mother in the house is leaving and I can’t come out,” or even “Amy is leaving so I can’t.” I’m not really sure if there was a choice, but even so, just hearing it phrased like that was something special to me.

In the past months, that phrase “my mom” has been spoken to me many times from him, but always about his birth mother and always in a negative way. Like, “MY MOM always let me do what I want” or “MY REAL MOM taught me to tie my shoes.” Really, I cannot blame him in the least bit for these feelings, but also, it stung a bit too. So, it was such a gift to hear him refer to me with these specific words.

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Today, I was reading the Advent entry from The Greatest Gift and Ann Voskamp was focusing on the Ten Commandments and how they are an invitation to relationship with God and with others. She says:

God knows we wander, and He woos again and again, all through the commandments: “I am the Lord Your God, the Lord Your God, the Lord Your God.” You are mine. Make Me Yours. Am I Yours?

And I realized that this desire for this ownership is an invitation to a loving relationship. I’m desiring it with Jac0b and it’s a picture of what God is desiring with me and with you. He doesn’t want to just be a god, He wants to be my God. He doesn’t just want to be a Messiah, He wants to be my Savior. He doesn’t want me to talk about heaven, but my heavenly home.

I was challenged to take some ownership in my relationship with God today. How do I speak about Him to others? How do I think about Heaven, the kingdom, the body of Christ? Do I take ownership of it? Is it mine?

It is and I’ve been wooed today into claiming it for what it is. He’s my God, my Savior come to love and save me and I’m looking forward to my heavenly home.

How about you?