Individual Snuggles

Tonight I decided to give each child about a half an hour of individual time.

My son finished his dinner early and came to me, where I was on the computer. He just wanted to sit on my lap, so I let him as we looked at old pictures of when he was an infant and just getting out of the toddler stage. He snuggled on my lap as we talked, laughed, and tickled each other.

It was good to not do anything on the computer except just spend time with my little man. After we looked at a bunch of pictures of various events of our lives, we sat on the bed and began reading in John 14. It's so great that my children love the Word of God. He snuggled in my lap as I read John 14, as he drifted sleepily to sleep.

Then, his sister came in. I asked her if she wanted me to continue reading in John and she said yes after she brushed her teeth. By now, her brother was nearly asleep. I began reading in John 15, where it talks about Jesus being the vine and we are the branches.

Throughout this chapter, I talked about what this chapter meant, having short discussions with my daughter. It was so nice. She was getting sleepy, too, so I ended on the 15th chapter of John, prayed over the kids and asked the kids what they were thankful for.

Something my kids and I do every day is do a "Thank you God . . . " list in the morning and evening, at least. I strongly believe in having a grateful heart. It takes the focus on things we want to complain about and onto God, sharing with Him what we are grateful for. His mercies are new every day.

By now, my son was asleep and I asked my daughter to come and lie down and put her head in my lap as I stroked her hair, singing to her. I sang her a bunch of Baptist hymns that I remembered. Funny, my church doesn't sing those hymns and I haven't been in a church in years that sings those hymns, but I remember their words as if they were plastered in front of me. Yet, I cannot remember the words of the songs we sing frequently over the past decade. Weird, eh?

Anyway, I just held my daughter and sang to her for about a half hour. She laughed as I sang "Victory in Jesus" and she thought the verse said "punched me into victory" instead of "plunged me into victory". I almost started to laugh to, but somehow refrained.

My daughter, when she was an infant and toddler, would love me to sing to her for hours. Yes, hours. It was very soothing to her. I miss those days and maybe I'll integrate some of them back -- not the hours, but maybe a half an hour here and there. I want to capture as many beautiful moments with my kids as I can.

Tonight was just a very sweet time with my kids. Thank you dear Papa!