Adoration

I spent all weekend with my family and this morning in church, I was given a glimpse of hope by my 3 yr old niece.  Her name is Lauren and she's darling.. I mean how could you not love this face?

Lauren loves me and wants to be wherever I am, which is quite endearing to me.  My sister often jokes about Lauren being my kid and not hers since she will often pick me over her own mother.  So of course, today at church Lauren wanted to hang out with Aunt Angie.  Well, we hung out between services in the Cafe and then when the next service started, we stayed and hung out some more.  She kept begging to go in to hear the music so when they started worship, of course, we went in....how could I say no?  We started singing and Lauren began clapping her hands.  The name of the song escapes me but there was a line about that went "I found a love greater than life itself, I found a hope stronger and nothing else...."  I get emotional when I hear that song and today wasn't any different.  But it really hit me when little Miss Lauren raised her hands as well.  I got a little choked up because I saw the look of joy on her face and I realized that I'd been missing that for quite some time.  I realized that I wanted to be like Lauren - I wanted to be able to raise my hands and have absolute joy in doing so.  I'm not sure that Lauren really understood but it doesn't matter cause I know that Jesus does.

As I thought about that this afternoon, I realized that He used Lauren to bring me hope - hope that I will return to that place of joy and just live in the moment and not worry about tomorrow.  I always knew that she was special but after today I know she holds an even bigger place in my heart!