You know that moment you wish you could capture in still-frame — just freeze it and frame it and have it within arm’s reach — but you know if you did it might spoil the purity of it all?

I had one of those today, interrupting my mundanity.

One of my littles was struggling again with that same old lie. I see it in her body before her words ever speak it — she slouches when it haunts her. Her eyes half-shut under the weight of those eyelids, hiding her.

Shame is her food: not as good as her siblings, never was as good as her siblings, never will be as good as her siblings. Bad, bad, bad is the tagline of this lie.

So here we were again, sifting through it all — her sifting, me wanting to lift up her little eyes.

Her sister snuck into the background of our conversation, just as we started praying, with this one phrase — my still-frame moment.

“He’s making you new!” she declared with a fire in her eyes, and something clicked in the one in my lap.

When she had moved beyond bad, bad, bad to describe herself, I noticed the phrases she used weren’t her own, they were learned. Mimicked. She’d overheard this same sister in the room saying those very things, about herself, months and years earlier and she was trying them on for herself.

But today there was a different word over both of them — the one who declared it and her sister, who heard it.

My girls were being re-written.

She may not have been able to recall that He spoke this first in His Word — in Revelation 21:5 or 2 Corinthians 5:17 — about them and about Him, but now it was lodged her language. It was hers, to own, that came first from Him.

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Words fill my day.

By 8:15pm, I’m near-crawling up the stairs to tuck them in bed, not on any sort of guard over what might happen between when my feet leave the first-floor hardwoods and hit their worn, old bedroom carpeting. In those short few minutes, I not only hear it, but swallow it: the list of all I missed in just this one day.

She wanted to talk, heart-level, and I brushed her off to keep cleaning. I ignored the prices at the meat counter and walked away with $50 steak for one single night, unknowingly. I barked orders after dinner in lieu of patient training. And I didn’t even finish washing her sheets from this morning — what bed will this child sleep in tonight?

Those few minutes were loaded with words, all aimed at one place.

My heart is at risk all day long, but because I wear big-girl skin I hone in on hers and often neglect mine.

As a 21^st-century mama, I have fingertip access to hashtags and blog-posts and captions and tweets. Words. At me, around me, enticing me. And this is just the external. The work many of them do on my insides is so often undetected by me.

A media that enables us beautiful admission to resources around the world and hearts-spilled-out-for Him, on the screen, can wrap its grip around my ankles if I’m not careful. Without it, there’s a war being waged on my insides — of words that are not His Words over me. With it, the noise through which I need to sift is even louder. While the answer at times is to press pause, to limit, to take a break, there’s a greater need brewing on our insides.

My need is the same as hers.

I need the strong words, words that can frame this house. Words that become not just an accessory to an already-established dwelling, but a foundation and a frame through which I can see all of life.

Enter adoration: the simple habit that turns the 2-minute walk from the first floor up to their bedrooms at night into an opportunity to take His Word and put it in my mouth, in my own dialect. I take His Word — for example, Revelation 21:5 “Behold, I make all things new” — and I say it back to Him like this: Lord, You promise to make all things new. I adore You for making me new, even now. This day feels stained and worn but You promise new over it.

The lies that seek to flood my mind over laundry and dishes and that 2-minute plod towards bedtime kisses and cuddles don’t have room when His Word replaces that space.

Strong words — His strong Word — is made to be craved. When we start moving it from being just a morning meal but also into bite-sized snacks throughout our day, our craving increases. Before we know it, it’s these Words for which we hunger.

And our girls will crave what we crave.

The spontaneous outburst from my little girl’s mouth today was first formed from her lips when she was jammie-clad and sprawled across our family room couch. Our family’s nightly habit of adoration had her adoring Him, from Revelation 21:5, as “the God who makes all things new.”

She’s just like her mama. And so is her sister. We could get lost in those thoughts of ours, for hours or days. We need reinforcement — the daily, hourly, sometimes minute-by-minute means of filling our minds by using our mouths to speak His Word back to Him.

There is a Person behind those words. He’s radiant. And He’s available. To them and to me.

For More on Adoration - this habit that’s transforming hearts, big and small, in our house — read Why I Adore, Showing Up, and How to Really Fall in Love. Or join us in adoring, daily, over here on instagram.