Ownership and Belonging

But now thus says the LORD, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I 

have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  Isaiah 34:1, ESV

Some years ago our family traveled to Texas to attend the baptism of my newest niece. I was excited to meet little miss Maya, to see if she looked like her mom or her dad and to aah over the tinyness of her toes. Of course, all the other relatives were anxious to meet her, too, and the poor girl was bounced around the room from one set of arms to another from the moment we all arrived.

After waiting my turn for several hours, I finally found a quiet moment to gently lift Her Babyness out of her mother’s arms and settle into the couch to have a good look at her. As I marveled at the exquisite perfection of her miniature facial features, my own little girl, all of three years old, came sidling over to us. Emmalyn gazed seriously at her cousin’s face tucked into the crook of my arm, and then looked up at me with a concerned pucker between her eyebrows. With gravity she announced, “You don’t belong to her. You belong to US.”

That sounds about right. I’m pretty sure my kids do think that I belong to them. Like any mother, I have also done time as the cook, the maid, the teacher, the playmate, the chauffeur . . .  The children seem genuinely surprised when I point out that I’m actually not here to be at their beck and call.

Emmalyn was wrong. I don’t belong to her. I’m the parent, after all. In her three year old world, I was all-powerful, all-knowing, provider and protector, creator and judge. I'm the mom. She cannot own me.

No, she had it backward. I don’t belong to her, but rather, she belongs to me. She is my child. I give her more than she can ever see. I love her more than she will ever know. Nothing can ever change the fact wrapped around my heart that she is my daughter, my precious one.

That afternoon in Texas I was focused on my niece and didn’t take time to reassure my concerned daughter, but I wish I had. I wish I’d smoothed her cheek with my thumb and leaned down close to her brown eyes and said, “You are my child. Forever and ever, you belong to me.”

. . .

I’ve taken my turn at being the owner-child. Sometimes I act like God belongs to me. I speak to Him with request after request – help me, get me out of this jam, make it all better – and am surprised and a little offended when everything doesn’t go my way. I take for granted that He’s always there, waiting until I’m ready to make use of Him before calling His name and defining our relationship by my own terms.

It’s ludicrous to say that God belongs to man. God is God and I am merely me – a small, small speck on a spinning globe. God does not belong to me . . . but I belong to Him. How can those words be uttered without a gasp of amazement and a shudder of humility? I belong to Him. And not because I say, here I am, Lord, lookit me, I’m here for you, big guy. No, I’m His because He chose me. I am His child because my brother Jesus died in my place, was separated from His Father so that I might become a daughter.

. . .

Before the big day my brother Todd asked us about baptism etiquette. He thought it made most sense for the mother to hold the baby during the ceremony, but we convinced him that it is standard procedure for the godmother to do the holding. (As the godmother in question, I was definitely in favor of this protocol.)

But that Sunday morning, as I held my niece while the water was poured over her head, I knew that it was not in fact her godmother holding her, and not her mother or even her father. At that moment she was held with utmost care by her Heavenly Father. He gazed down lovingly and said to her, as He said to me at my baptism and you at yours, “You are my child. Forever and ever, you belong to me.”

First published in The Alpena News, February 7, 2015