Kissing Bugs

In the last few months, my 21 month old daughter began giving kisses. Both my wife and I have fond memories about those first few kisses. I have written before about my kiss goodbye ritual with my daughter and how it was a special thing that when shared with grandma caused a bit of envy to rise up in me. But today it got a whole lot worse! We spent the morning at the playground, where we saw a small millipede dangling from one of the metal bars. My daughter noticed it with glee, exclaiming "bug!" This is behavior we encourage as we want her to appreciate nature. But then she began blowing kisses to the bug! Kissing a bug?!?!

I thing it is great that she is so compassionate, but how am I supposed to feel special when she kisses me if the kiss is something that she also freely gives to bugs?

Perhaps this the one of the maddening things about grace. God's love is special, and it is wonderful to know that God loves you. But it can be hard to remember that one of the reason God loves us is that God loves even the bugs--the most annoying apparently useless creatures (both bugs and humans) are loved by God; and perhaps that makes us feel less special. But perhaps it is also comforting that in our most honest times of self-reflection, when we see all that would make us unloveable, we can know that God even loves the bugs.