Do you wuv you?

I love playing this game with my kids where I whisper to them...

"Do you know what?"

"Whut mama?"

"I love you!"

Emma particularly loves it and takes it a step further...

"I wuv you too mama......and I wuv Norwah and Hudson and Daddy and myself and YOU!"

"I love Norah and Hudson and Daddy too, Emma!"

"Mama?...Do you wuv you?"

Wait...whaaaaat? Do I love me? Does that feel like a strange question to anyone else?

We have a policy of answering honestly in our home, and so I didn't feel like I could just flippantly say Yes. Because sometimes, I don't love myself as much as I love all these people under my roof. Sometimes, I love them exponentially more than I love myself. I answered her with a yes, but ya know how God uses our kids to refine us? He was, in this moment, and speaking through 2 year old lips.

I think it struck me weirdly because most people in our society view loving yourself as a bad thing, as an arrogance that stinks rank. We prefer words like pamper or "treating myself". When often (not always, but often) all we are doing is using some external force to fill a love void. And we find that it works for a bit. But, next day, we are back at it again, fighting the lies we hear in our heads - be it from the enemy or from harsh words spoken or action done all those years ago. I seem to fight almost daily with loving myself. I don't want to love myself too much because that's pride and arrogance, but I keep hearing that I can't love anyone else well until I love myself. And what does that kind of love look like?

I think for me, in this season, it looks like grace. Grace for the moments when I an undone. Undone can come in so many different ways for all of us, but for a mama of 3 small kids in the middle of a move in the middle of the holidays it comes in the form of my home. I seriously think there must be some frat boyz hiding out in the closets. My theory is that they all emerge after we are asleep and move with stealth-like ninja quickness to watch my TV, nosh on Cheetos and soda, play with my kids toys, throwing them aimlessly around my house, and then strip naked and leave their laundry both in clean piles in baskets and dirty...well...just everywhere (like, I seriously found a dirty sock in the hairbrush drawer. Seriously, frat boyz?) And they all must be carrying around bottles of Febreeze. Cause it don't smell like frat house up in here, but it sho' do look like one. So if anyone comes visiting...just blame it on the frat boyz.

I mean, seriously, I woke up today hearing all this condemnation about how I should kick out the frat boyz and grow up and be the 34 year old mom that I am and have a spotless house. Did I mention we are moving in like 10 days? And that I have 3 small children? And that I'm packing this place up mostly by myself? And trying to buy the Christmas gifts? And figure out where to ship the gifts because we have no permanent address at the moment? So...grace.

Grace for myself that I am hospitable and the frat boyz can stay until we move into the new place. (But then it's gonna be all "You ain't got to go home, but 'chu gotsta get the heck outta here!") And the Christmas tree may not go up this year. And the presents will come, at some point, to some address, somewhere. Grace that the kids will survive a year without starting any kind of Forman traditions. Grace that crockpot meals are fantastic and beautiful sides prepared with loving care are for the birds when you're moving. Pizza and Movies. Pizza is acceptable and movies essential in this season. And paper plates. And grace to laugh off the things that don't really matter at all or that I can't control. For example, our new house was ordered with 2 sets of porches and stairs....and we have 3 doors. C'est la vie. Grace is the name of the game for wrapping up 2015.

It just hit me....Emma was the one who asked me if I loved myself and started this whole train of thought. And Emma's middle name? Grace. How fitting.