This post originally appeared on the Secrets Savored ministry blog in Summer 2018

Nesting is a curious thing mothers universally do, tirelessly carrying the proverbial sticks in our beaks to create a place for our babies to belong. I remember hoisting our living room rug out the front door at 40 weeks because I decided it was too disgusting to be in the presence of my baby girl. Now that baby girl is four, and I still go to great efforts to make sure things around our home are functioning well for her and her little brother (though I haven’t irrationally tossed anything out the front door in a while).

Recently, my two kids started sharing a room, and I noticed how the preparation for the change felt like love. Something about organizing the closet and dresser to accommodate two tiny wardrobes, making matching name signs for above their twin beds, selecting curtains made sense in this shared space—all of it felt like love.

This time there were not pregnancy hormones tricking me into thinking that my actions were a silly thing.

As I worked, I recalled John 14, when Jesus offers comfort to his disciples, saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (v. 1-3).

Preparing a place for our loved ones? That’s not silly—that’s something straight from the heart of God. I started looking at my house with renewed perspective. The thought I put into this house is an expression of love, because I am curating a place where my people can feel safe, experience a sense of belonging, be together, see their names above the bed and know: I am wanted here, and this place was made just for me.

It pricks my heart, too, when I recall Jesus’s birth. Mary did not have the luxury of tossing a living room rug out the front door before her baby’s birth—she spent her first days as a new mother in the lowliest of settings that she wasn’t able to “prepare” at all. Possibly she was still reeling from the rejection of every establishment in town: There’s no room for you here.

That was Jesus’s birth story, and maybe it reflects aspects of your story. Maybe home was never safe. Maybe your name was never written on the wall, proclaiming your belonging and wanted-ness.

The truth, dear sister, is that what you may have been denied in your earthly story will be fully redeemed in your heavenly one. In the same way, the beautiful things we have experienced in our earthly home are just a glimmer of what is to be expected in our heavenly one. The tenderness we feel for our kids and our longing to provide home for them are just glimpses of God’s love for his children. That’s why, for me, certain lyrics from a worship song at church have begun to pack a bigger punch: “In my Father’s house, there’s a place for me. I’m a child of God, yes I am!” It is as if God is reminding my heart, “Yes, Daughter, there is actually a place for you! Your name is on the wall!"

What a privilege it is to have a place to belong and to be a picture of heaven to our children here on earth!

So, Mama, decorate that baby’s room. And while you paint the walls and hang the art, remember your Father in heaven, who loves you tenderly and prepares a place for you. You can tell that baby all about Him.