Shut up. I'm PRECIOUS!

This is the totally irrepressible Margaret Tucker Millsap. Also known as my completely delightful granddaughter - Maggie. The photo is actually one she took of herself – in the mirror – while trying on bridesmaid dresses. That’s our Maggie!

I wish I could adequately describe Maggie. I’m not sure there are enough words in the dictionary. But let me give it a brief try. You’re probably just going to think I’m prejudiced because she’s my granddaughter anyway.

Maggie has an effervescent personality and a zest for life that is unequaled. She loves the Lord with all her heart and lives for Him daily.

She is an incredibly talented musician. I honestly don’t believe there is a song lyric anywhere she doesn’t know. She has the widest range of music appreciation of anyone I know. I’m serious. The kid will listen to everything from opera to rap. She thinks her Uncle John "rocks" on a guitar but I’m telling you, she’s every bit as good at this age as he was. When I was visiting her a few weeks ago, Maggie was practicing for the youth praise band at their church and would sit in the family room, playing her guitar and singing praise choruses every evening. So beautiful. So worshipful. This old Gran LOVED it!

Maggie has God given leadership skills which she shares abundantly in their church youth group and beyond. She is a powerful social magnet. I started to say "social butterfly" – but magnet is a much more apt description of the way she draws others to herself. She has more friends than she can count (and one boyfriend that’s pretty durn cute himself!).

She is passionately loyal to her friends. She grieves over them and prays for them when they are "messing up" – and doesn’t hesitate to tell them what she thinks.

Maggie is very well read. She’s devoured some classics that I’ve never been brave enough to read. And she not only comprehends them but quotes from them and lists them among her "Favs." Smart! OMG, the kid is SMART! At 16, she’s already got a semester of college under her belt.

As for household skills – she sews beautifully, quilts, and has an eye for color and design like you wouldn’t believe. She can cook, clean and do anything that needs doing around the house as well as her mother. Notice, I said she CAN do those things. She’s a typical enough teenager that she doesn’t always WANT to do those things. GRIN!

For everything I’ve already written, trust me, I could easily write that much more. But I promised I’d be brief, didn’t I? So don’t even get me started about her amazing artistic abilities or her incredible photography skills!

The thing that stands out about Maggie most, to me, is her wonderful sense of humor. The kid is a hoot and a half!! She comes by it honestly. Their whole family are very funny individuals who have a joyous and positive outlook on life. Collectively they share a lot of laughter and fun together.

With each of my "long distance grandchildren" I have always found myself remembering certain phrases and things they’ve said in the brief intervals of time I get to be with them for months after a visit. It doesn’t seem to matter how old they get, that still rings true.

The title of this post is the "maggie-ism" that keeps resounding in my ears from my recent visit in the Millsap household.

Maggie and her dad have developed a relationship that involves a great deal of playful banter. (much of it ala Bon Qui Qui, for you YouTube fans) Make no mistake. Maggie knows exactly where the boundary lines of sass are drawn and her retired Colonel father gets his due respect. But, OFTEN – when he is playfully chiding her about something – her response will be – "Shut up. I’m precious!"

"You might want to rethink that outfit before you go to town, Maggie."
"Shut up. I’m precious!"

"Have you finished your laundry Maggie?"
"Shut up. I’m precious!"

There’s an endless array of scenarios that invite her response – and I hope it’s not losing something in translation here where you cannot hear her cute inflection and see the impish grin that accompanies it.

I’ve heard it in my mind’s ear a thousand times since I got home and here is how the Lord has used it to speak to my spirit:

Peter wrote that our adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour and that we are to resist him. (1 Peter 5:8-9)

I wonder what would happen when that lion roars in my ear and fear grips my heart, if I looked him in the eye and said, "Shut up. I’m precious!"

I wonder what would happen when that father of all lies whispers in my ear that I’ll never be victorious and condemnation seeks a home in my heart; if I looked him in the eye and said, "Shut up. I’m precious!"

I wonder what would happen when my own sense of inadequacy tries to tell me I can’t do what God has called me to do, if I looked it squarely in the eye and said, "Shut up. I’m precious!"

I am precious, you know. And so are you!

You are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you.
Isaiah 43:4

Next time someone or some thing tries to tell us we are not ... let’s take a page out of Maggie’s book and say:
"Shut up. I’m precious!"