Mother's Day and the pancakes

Happy Mother's Day!
First, I want to thank everyone for all your prayers during my surgery and my recovery so far. I am doing pretty well, but since the surgery ended up being much more involved than expected, I have a lot more healing to do.

Laryn has a saying that I love. She will tell you, "you are the best _______ I have!" Fill in the _______ with Mommy, Daddy, Nanny, friend, sister, dog...you get the point. She has a way of making everyone feel like they are special. Robbie always tells her that it's a good thing he's the best Daddy she has since he is the only Daddy God gave her. To which Laryn says, "I know. He's my best God". We all want to feel like we are the best _____ SOMEthing. I found an old Mother's Day card from Caleb in preschool and it said My mom's the best at...and then there were like 5 things to list and he put that his mom was the best cook. OK...I generally don't cook. So I had to think why he would put that I was the best cook. Is this a stereotype? Does he think I work at McDonald's? So I asked him why he wrote that I was the best cook. His answer was that I make the best pancakes ever. So me and Betty and Aunt Jamiama and Peter Pan we got a thing going and that makes my son think that I am the best cook ever. Now being a great cook isn't something that I aspire to. Fun, involved, a mom who knows her kids...yeah, but a cook? Not so much. But you know what? I DO want to make the best pancakes ever for my son. I want to fulfill his expectations of me. Just like when Laryn tells me that I am the best Mommy that she has...I want to be the best Mommy she has.
When someone tells you that you look nice or that they like your top or that you sounded great in choir, it makes you feel important. That's the way we were made. It makes you want to be those things that that person says that you are...you want to be worthy in their eyes.
So all of this got me to thinking about what God says about me and what I should think about what He thinks about me. I looked it up and it made me extremely proud to read the things that He wrote about me.
Think about this, you are: A jewel in His crown, a treasure of great price, His bride, the lover of His soul, every fiber was knit together by Him before you were placed in to your mother's womb, you are worth the life and suffering of His only Son, you are worthy of His devotion and His love, His adoration and His name. The thing is that we are never able to live up to all of that. I'm not the best cook ever, but because I make him good pancakes with peanut butter and syrup on them, to him I am the best cook ever. So ask God why do you think these things about me? Why am I special above all else to you? Allow Him to praise on you. Allow Him the opportunity to tell you...you make the best pancakes ever. See there is something or something(s) that you do for God that He wants JUST from you. If Caleb thought that I was the best cook in the world and so I started to make a bunch of great gourmet dishes I wouldn't have satisfied his hunger OR his statement that I was the best cook.
So as far as I can see if we are trying to be the best at something for God we should sure know what it is that He finds so amazing about us...even if it's just that we make great pancakes.

Dear Lord, We all want to be the best moms that we can be but more importantly we want to be the moms that YOU created us to be. What good is it for me to try to be a gourmet cook for my kids when Caleb is happy with the pancakes. They mean something to him. So instead of striving to some superhero mom status that doesn't mean anything to my kids and wears me out and gets me no kudos, I need help to hone down on my 4 children's love languages and I do my very best to speak to each of them in at least their primary and hopefully their secondary every day. And I ask that You speak to each of us in our own love language.
We love You and honor You, Amen