Pookie

How many of you had a security blanket or favorite stuffed animal that you couldn't sleep without?  My favorite stuffed animal was a small brown teddy bear named Pookie (pronounce poo-key).  I had that same teddy bear until a few years ago when my Mom re-married and moved out of the house in Beverly Hills.  I have to admit, I struggled with the decision on whether or not I should have taken Pookie to seminary.  Luckily for me, my mom got rid of Pookie without my knowledge after I got married.  I was angry for a while about that, but ultimately got over it.

Morgan never really had a security blanket or toy that she has clung to for a long period of time; although, she does get overly attached to a variety of different things - foam swords (she named it Swordy), a stuffed monkey (she named Mr. Banana Pants), a rock (named rocky), a old wipes box (named boxy - just kidding on that one) - she is really original with her naming of things.  Let me explain that last one- Janel was cleaning out a storage box one day and found an empty wipes box that we use to keep in Morgans diaper bag when she was little.  Janel threw out the box, but Morgan literally cried for an hour that we threw it out.  Like I said - overly attached to things.

Madison on the other hand, has become completely inseparable from her teddy bear that we call Bear - can you guess where Morgan got her naming abilities.  The other day, I crept into Maddie's room and gently pulled the Bear from underneath her so that I could wash it overnight without her noticing it was gone.  I was looking at Bear and this thing was absolutely gross.  Originally this bear was given to Maddie by her Aunt Lana as a gift card holder from Baby's R Us.  The bear is normally pink, but on this night, Bear was closer to black than pink.

As I was looking at this animal, I thought to myself, "Self, how could anyone love this dirty, filthy animal."  but then God dropped a message into the mailbox of my heart.  He reminded me, that until I was covered by the blood of Christ, I was a filthy, dirty animal in his eyes, but he still loved me unconditionally.  Ultimately he sacrificed his only Son for this filthy, dirty animal so that I could be clean in his eyes.  The washing of Bear took total of an hour, and only about 3 minutes of my time.  But for me to be clean and presentable to God, took Christ Jesus coming to earth, living a perfect life, dying on a cross like a criminal, and then rising again three days later.

Its very humbling to know that in spite of my uncleanliness, all that defects that I have in my life, and being just plain dirty in comparison to God's perfection, that someone loved me enough to sacrifice to make me clean.