The Beautiful Angel

(1/12/12)

Over the holidays, my daughter was in a production of “The Nutcracker”.  She was an angel, dressed all in white with wings on her back and glitter in her hair.  She, along with the rest of the six and seven year old angels on stage, held a candle (battery operated of course) while swaying back and forth, walking around in a circle, and doing an occasional twirl.  The whole scene only took about five minutes; but being that I was a first time ‘dance mom’ I was a little nervous.  As I was watching her from the back of the auditorium, however, I noticed one emotion that began to far outweigh my anxiety… it was pride.  That was MY DAUGHTER up there…. MY LITTLE GIRL!  I watched her with a huge grin on my face, so excited to see her dance.  Now being that she’s just seven years old and only been dancing a few months, she didn’t do every move perfectly.  She missed one of the twirls, she had to be told when to walk across the stage, and most of the time she paid more attention to the lead dancer than she did to her own performance.  To me, however, none of that mattered… I was proud of her because of who she was, not because of what she did (or didn’t) do.

After the performance was over, I began to think about God’s love for us.  Just like any good parent, His love is not based on what we do, but who we are… His children. He doesn’t love us more when we remember to pray, and less when we forget.  He doesn’t love us more when we are giving of ourselves, and less when we are being selfish.  We don’t have to act perfectly in order to gain His love, He just gives it freely.  So the next time I need a reminder of God’s love for me, all I have to do is remember my daughter, the beautiful angel.  Isn’t it awesome that God still uses angels today?

"How great is the love the father has lavished on us,
that we should be called the children of God!
And that is what we are!"
(1 John 3:1, NIV)