There is something really special about having a place saved for you. Do you ever go to meet friends and they are all seated around and you look and see that someone is saving the chair next to them for you?
How does that make you feel? Welcome, expected, valued, loved?
This weekend we went to visit our daughter’s family…. Their 14 month old son Caleb can melt my heart with a smile or a cry….but he did something really incredible this time ….he saved me a place.
While I stayed with them for five weeks, helping after Stacie’s heart surgery, I got into a routine. I always sat on the same spot on the sofa…when I read to Caleb, watched him play and, visited with his mom and dad in the evenings. In the early morning when mama was still sleeping and not yet able to pick up or hold Caleb – Caleb and I snuggled on the sofa under a big quilt while he had his morning bottle.
I haven’t been back in three weeks…and I was delighted that he was so glad to see me, I got a huge hug and smiles, he wouldn’t let me put him down for a long time and when I did put him down, he ran into the living room, climbed up on the sofa and pulled down the quilt and patted it saying, “Amma, nite nite, Amma, nite nite.” Then he ran to the other sofa climbed up and cried “Ammmmmmaa”. When I went to him, he sat far enough over so that I could fit in “my space” on the sofa. He patted the seat and smiled, saying softly, “Amma”.
I got it, he wanted me back in the places I had been, in the places where we shared times of love and laughter of snuggles and care. He had saved me a place in his home and his heart.
There is another who saves a place for us, Jesus. While we go about our days of joy and laughter, of trials and wounds, healing and growing, Jesus is with us, loving us, holding us and letting us go, in all the right times and places. Jesus let us know His plan so beautifully in John 14:1-4, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Save a place for someone special today….in your home and in your heart and let them know that Jesus is preparing a place for them too! You'll be glad you did!
Caleb’s “Amma”,
Cheryl
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