Even More
“Do you know how much I love you?” I ask. My son snuggles close up to me on the couch. His bare feet expose wiggling toes, and he smiles at me.
“One hundred?” He replies, putting his head softly on my shoulder.
“Even more,” I respond, leaning over in his direction planting a soft kiss on the top of his head.
“One thousand?” He inquires with big brown eyes flashing curiously behind lids with long dark lashes.
“Even more,” I giggle.
His head pops up in astonishment. “Three thousand?”
“Even more.” I stare straight into his eyes, and I smile because I know that his five-year-old brain is trying to think of a really big number.
“One hundred forty thousand sixty hundred fifteen!” His excitement makes me laugh.
“Even more!”
“Well, what number then?”
“The biggest most fantastic number there is.”
“What number is that?”
“It’s so big, Sweetie, I don’t even know it, but that’s just how much I love you.”
I look around the mess of action figures, hangers, and shoes littering the living room. There is a large bottle of lotion sitting on top of the video game console. The rug is crooked, and the couch has stray clothing items strewn about it. My son, now hanging upside down off the couch with feet wiggling joyfully near my ear, is beatboxing rhythmically. No room in the house is as clean as this one, but no one is as happy as this little boy either.
I think about all the things I could be doing right now, all the messes I could be cleaning, all the work I could be doing, but I settle contentedly in my spot. I am so grateful to have this messy little house and this jumpy, beatboxing son, and I smile because God is playing the “Even More” game with me, too.
“Do you know how much I love you?” I imagine Him asking me.
“Enough to give me this family and this house?”
“Even more.”
“Enough to allow us to pay all the bills and eat until we are all full?”
“Even more.”
“Well, how much then?”
“You see your son bouncing joyfully next to you on the couch?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I love you so much that I sacrificed mine for you.”
I grab my son and throw him across my lap as I pepper his face with kiss after kiss.
“That’s an ‘even more’ I will never fully fathom, Lord, and I am so humbled and grateful.”
Memos from the Middle 