It happened on a summer evening two years ago when I was trying to feed my family supper by the decent time of 6 o’clock. I had made a nice meal, but noticed that my husband hadn’t arrived home from the office yet. I decided to call him and check in…

A board meeting had run late. The meeting preceding that one had caused him to skip his lunch, and unfortunately, his body was in serious need of some food - and food fast! He planned on grabbing a slice of Casey’s pizza for the ride home.

“What did you end up making?” he curiously inquired over the phone.

“Mini-meatloaf, veggies, and biscuits,” I said with a smile.

He apologized, said it sounded tasty, and assured me that he would be home soon and we could have a movie party with the kids.

“Ok, “ I said. “I love you. See you in a bit,” and we ended the call.

With the pan of simmering meatloaf on the stove, and the table all set by my 6 year-old daughter, Lydia, I went outside to call my three boys in for supper. I found them riding their bikes and instructed them to put their wheels away in the garage.

Moments later, Lydia came running out of the house, screaming. I thought she was hurt judging by the way she was frantically grabbing at her head.

I ran over to her - half expecting to find blood or a burn - but discovered she wasn’t physically hurt, but emotionally distressed.

Through out-of-control, frustrated tears she managed to say that she had “ruined it” - before she went into a verbal self-destruct.

Trying to make sense of it all, I grabbed her by the hand and led her back into the house, all the while her sobbing and shouting “Sorry, Mommy! I’m so sorry!”

As Lydia and I made our way into the kitchen, I realized that she was right. She had ruined it. Supper was in a steaming pile on the kitchen floor nestled among the shattered glass of the 9x13 pan. Apparently she had attempted to carry supper to the supper table.

Instead of such a “big girl” feat, however, she had dropped everything onto our tiled kitchen floor. This resulted in glass exploding in every possible direction.

Without wanting Lydia to cut her bare feet, I swung her up on the kitchen counter and began to clean up the mess.

As Lydia watched me work she continued to sob. “I was just trying to carry supper to the table,” she said. “I just wanted you to be proud of me.”

And something about those words pierced my heart in a way that glass can’t quite cut.

My 6 year-old daughter sat on my kitchen counter and sobbed because she truly believed that if she had carried a glass pan of simmering supper (that had come from a 350-degree oven, mind you!) across the kitchen floor to the supper table that she had set that I’d be proud of her.

Yes, proud of her! Like I wasn’t proud of her to begin with!

But her lie was that I wasn’t proud of her. Her lie was that I’d be upset that she had tried. Her lie was that now she had ruined supper and that she was a “bad girl."

I recognized the enemy was at work - attempting to water a lie in my daughter’s sensitive, formative heart. And with the authority that those, “Get behind me, Satan!” moments require, I immediately stood up from the mess and grabbed her by her sweet, round cheeks. I looked at her in the eyes and very calmly and assertively said, “Mommy loves you, Lydia, and I am proud of you.”

I spent the next 15 minutes cleaning up the mess. And in the time it took me to sweep up the shattered glass and sop up our ruined supper, the Holy Spirit began to reveal something to me… I realized that I had lived most of my life with my own deep need of hearing the very same words I just wanted you to be proud of me.

Approval simply means “the belief that someone or something is good or acceptable.”

And most navigate life scrambling to have their “approval hole” in their hearts filled.

We want to believe and yearn to hear that we are “good” and “acceptable.” But we sadly so often attach our identity, value, and self-worth to something that we can do.

We stand so tall when we set the supper table, but then later fall apart when supper fails to make it to the very table that we just set.

Essentially, we win when we’re winning, but can believe ourselves to be failures when we lose.

But, there is something revolutionary that happens when you stop living for approval and you start living from it!

You see, when my daughter was born and the doctor placed her on my bare chest, there was an unmistakable love that swept over me. The kind that takes your very breath away.

It was an unexplainable, overwhelming - almost suffocating kind of love for her - love with no strings attached! But Lydia had done nothing for me. Nothing! Other than to take up space in my uterus and cause me to be nauseous, cranky, and sleep-deprived for nine months, I had nothing from her to be proud of.

Yet, all I felt was love and all I knew was proud!

We love our children before they can return our love, and we are proud of them before they can merit anything to be proud of.

And I believe we get to experience this so we can somehow relate to the way our Heavenly Father feels towards us.

In fact the Bible says,

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

1 John 3:1a

He loved us before we loved him.

He was proud of us before we could say He had anything to be proud of.

The song “Jireh” by Elevation Worship & Maverick City Music begins with:

I'll never be more loved than I am right now

Wasn't holding You up

So there's nothing I can do to let You down

It doesn't take a trophy to make You proud

I'll never be more loved than I am right now, oh

To know that it doesn’t take a trophy to make my Father proud of me refutes the lie from the enemy that it does.

My approval from Him has nothing to do with what I can achieve.

When my Father turns His gaze towards for me, all He feels is love and all He knows is proud. Yes, in His eyes I already stand approved.

And in as much the same way, Lydia failing to carry supper to the supper table didn’t forfeit my love that I already felt towards her.

So instead of living our lives scrambling for our achievements to validate us and somehow fill the leaking “approval hole” in our hearts, we need to desperately place our identity, value, and self-worth in who He already says we are. Someone already loved. Someone already accepted. Someone already approved.

Yes, we need to stop living for approval and start living from it.

My baking dish wasn’t the only thing that shattered that evening two summers ago - it was the lie that the enemy had planted in my heart long ago that I needed to strive for approval rather than to live from it.

And this is the truth that I am committed to learn for myself and teach to my children:

God loves me. God accepts me. God is proud of me. Period.

So, Lydia Rae, when you’re old enough to find this blog post that your Mommy wrote about you, I want you to know that I haven’t taken lightly what you said when you were six. Even though it was uttered through distress and despair, it has set me on the path of looking deep within myself in search of my own desperate need for approval.

And I want you to know that whether supper makes it to the table or not in the years to come - I love you and I am so proud of you!

So hold your head up high, sweet girl, because you’ll never be more loved by your Father than you are right now.