Sudden love takes the longest time to be cured...

My 12 year old daughter is at church camp this week and I am missing her. I am missing our sparring matches. There's no one around to question my every move. There's no one to remind me that I don't know it all and I haven't experienced life as a pre-teen in 2009. I find myself bored and wishing for a good squabble with her. I know many of you are saying to yourself, "That's just wrong." But you see, Arianna keeps me on my toes and challenges me. I really miss her.
This is the longest I've gone without having to remind Arianna to brush her teeth and make her bed. I wonder if she has done either one of those things this week. Will I recognize her when I pick her up at camp on Saturday? Will her hair be unruly and tangled? Will she have bathed in the past week (swimming in the lake doesn't count!) Will she have clean clothes on or will they be the same clothes shes worn all week? I've wondered and worried about these things all week. But on Saturday morning those things won't matter any more. When I see my daughter I am going to embrace her in the biggest and longest hug-no matter how stinky, sweaty or unkept she looks! And that's sure to ignite a squabble because pre-teen girls do not like to be hugged in public! But none of that will matter, because she has been gone a week and I have missed her and I want her to know I love her. I love the smart and sassy young lady she is. And love covers a multitude of wrongs; even stinky, sweaty kids.
As I'm sitting here thinking about how much I miss Ari and how I can't wait to hug her on Saturday, I'm hit with the thought that this is how Christ sees us. He loves us no matter how disgusting we are, no matter what we've done or what mess we've gotten ourself into. He still wants to embrace us with his unconditional love. He will keep calling us and reminding us how to live becuase he loves us. He will always take us back.
I'm writing this while eating lunch at a chinese restaurant and I just opened my fortune cookie to find the following message inside, "Sudden love takes the longest time to be cured." That sums up how I feel about my children. I fell in love with them the moment I heard about them-it was sudden and unconditional. That's how Christ works too! He loves you from the moment He creates you. And his love is sudden and unconditional and nothing will ever change that. Do you know Christ's love that way? Have you felt His loving embrace lately? It doesn't matter how dirty you are or how awful you look in other's eyes, Christ loves you and wants to embrace you with His love. And then He wants you to show that kind of love to others. So I must finish writing now so that I can go and embrace this world with the love of Christ!