Jesus Loves Me All The Time
Sunday mornings are always delightful at my house. I usually stay up the night before making a breakfast casserole so that the smell of yummy homemade food wakes my sleeping children early the next morning.
They love getting up early on Sunday mornings – as do Hugh and I. We all make sure to be seated (my children have already dressed in their Sunday clothes before we eat – faces are washed, teeth are brushed) by around 6:45am so that we have plenty of time to eat our casserole and talk about the coming day.
Hugh usually uses this time to share one or two scriptures and then I lead the kids in a time of prayer as we finish breakfast.
I then have almost two hours to get ready for church. I take a long bath and take my time doing my hair and make-up while Hugh and the children clean up. Soft worship music is, of course, playing quietly in the background.
Bibles in hand, we head out early to church – plenty of margin. On the way, Hugh and I hold hands and talk about how grateful we are for each other.
…
Um, yeah, right.
If I were skilled with taking pictures, this is the point where I would post several pictures of my real morning.
A picture of my children screaming as I, in my old t-shirt, tried frantically to brush their hair. A picture of my kitchen, complete with whole wheat bagel and banana scattered all over. (Bagels and bananas – the best Sunday morning breakfast my children have had in months.) Finally, a picture of me throwing on clothes while being irritated with every member of my family for trying to talk to me.
I guess horrible Sunday mornings always leave me feeling kind of tired Sunday afternoon. But as I sat on my bed, room darkened as I read through some emails, I could hear my daughters start to sing.
Together, their two little voices echoed from the kitchen where they finished lunch. “Jesus loves me all the time…All the time…All the time…Jesus loves me all the time…”
I’ve never heard the song before – they must have learned it at church. As their voices sang over and over, my heart lightened and I let the tension of the morning wash away from me.
He loves me all the time. If I leave late for church, have a messy house, and am a total grump – He loves me. The harder times, too. He loves me in the middle of every mess, big or small.
I forget this sometimes, or I doubt it when I make mistakes – but His love is consistent and nothing will separate me from it (Romans 8).
A good reminder for me today – and next Sunday, when my casserole goes uncooked and my tension of getting out the door threatens to affect another morning.
Jesus loves me all the time.
Ok, you had me until you said that after breakfast you still had two hours to kill until you had to go to church. What gave it away was that would mean your kids would be all dressed and ready to go two hours early and in my house there was no way my kids could spend two hours in their church clothes with that much time on their hands and not demolish their outfits! But up until that point, I was in awe. (I still am – I think you rock)!
Oh, you totally had me going there for a minute!! Like Carol, I was thinking, “My kids would ruin their clothes if they sat around for two hours in them!” So glad to know we are not the only family that struggles with the Sunday morning issues.
Aren’t we so blessed that God loves us so much even when we are total failures at what we think is important?
Do our kids really need breakfast before Church? Don’t they feed them snacks there or something?
Heeeeeee looooovvves meee! Yeah. I know that song.
Yep…your real Sunday morning sounds a lot like the Sunday mornings around here!
I am so glad He loves me all of the time! I am also glad I don’t get a report card on how good of a job I do as a mommy…especially on Sundays!!!
ditto ditto ditto….glad to know we don’t float in the same boat alone….I love how God will speak thru our children exactly what we need to hear at just the right moments. they truly are gifts from Him.
a good chuckle with your ideal Sunday morning. I am up & out hours before my family, and my husband handles the whole scene by himself.
a special place in heaven for that man… truly.
I was almost overcome by evil green envy as I began reading about your Sunday mornings, and then the perfection became a bit tooo perfect as you got to take a bubble bath with soft praise music as the hubby & kids cleaned up! LOVE IT!! LOL
Sunday mornings– they’ve almost always been a disaster!
Thank you for this. You know, we just stop and get breakfast pizza and eat it in the church parking lot. We have a whole lot of trouble getting up and out the door so it happened one morning that we totally forgot breakfast and that solution ended up routine! Now we dress the girls in dark clothes so their breakfast mess is easily hidden and we’re good to go.
I found this post after searching “Jesus loves my messy house, gosh darn it!” I said this after my FIL criticized my house keeping and I was ranting to a friend. I’m actually a good housekeeper, but I’m better at other things like homeschooling and parenting and enjoying life, you know? Anyway, thank you for this inspirational post.