Mamamama Mamamama

It happened.  Tonight.  She said my name.  Well, one of them.  Sweet little Ellie’s been working on her “m” for a week or two now, but tonight she looked at me and said “Mamamama” and then buried her face in my shoulder, her sweet, shy gesture, when I gushed over her in delight. She did it again and again, all throughout the night.

After I snuggled her to sleep, I stood in the kitchen, slicing mozzarella and chopping basil to freshen up the leftovers I was nuking in the microwave.  No one else was there, but I stood beaming ear to ear, thinking about the sound of her little voice saying my name.  On any given day, a lot of people say my name: friends, family members who know my childhood nicknames, the telemarketers who call our house, my husband, who knows how to melt my heart with the sweet names he calls me.

But there was something about this little voice, just now learning how to articulate the sounds produced by her very breath wafting over her little vocal chords, those same vocal chords that developed while she was growing inside my own body, and the fact that she used those first sounds to say my name.  And it hit me, as it usually does, like a ton of bricks. How must our Creator, God, feel when His children – those He made in His image, with a heart full of love and creative design, speak His name – on purpose, because He is the center of our lives, the source of our existence, the one who cares and provides for us daily.  And when Scripture says “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands,” could it mean that He has been whispering to us “Mamamama,” as I have to Ellie, longing to hear her say my name? And does His heart just break that some of those He’s created never speak his name at all?

I’m thankful for the quiet in my home tonight, and the opportunity to soak this all in, and to whisper, “Abba, Father,” knowing He delights in the sound of this little voice calling His name with all the love I have to muster.