The Sweetest Song

It was a dreary weekday afternoon, and I was sitting in the swivel chair quickly browsing something on the computer. Ethan was sitting next to me.

He began to sing.

Ethan is often singing. He loves to sing. He's often commented on the way he sings perfectly on-key. He sang entire songs long before he spoke in sentences. Lately, he's begun making up little songs.

This one was different.

He started nonchalantly. "I love you, Mommy..." I thought he'd hum a few bars and then trail off. Instead, he began to sing louder. "I love you...I love you...I love you..."

Of course, he had no way of knowing hours earlier I had been listening to a minister I highly respect online. She had been talking about healing for our emotions, about the way the damage our past and our poisoned thinking can inflict on our present.

You will never completely overcome the hurts in your soul until you get a revelation of how much God truly loves you, she had said. And in that moment I had asked, "Why is it still so hard to believe sometimes?

Here we were, in the chair. Ethan was singing, and his song rose, a little louder, a little more insistent. He was looking me straight in the eye. He wouldn't tear his eyes away.

I love you.

He took one hand and brushed a strand of hair away from my eyes. Those eyes filled with tears, because Ethan was no longer singing. God was singing. God was singing straight to my heart.

In another moment Ethan was Ethan again. He switched tunes and looked away and starting being his usual silly, goofy self, making up words to something he learned at school.

In church yesterday the sermon was about, wouldn't you know it, God's love. Someone is trying to get my attention.

"Loving God has its starting point in God loving us," our pastor said. Even when I have trouble believing it. Even through a song. Even through my son.