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What do you cherish? What do you love in a special way? Think about who and what you admire and value most. This is what it means to cherish.

Cherish is not a common word today but you get a sense of its meaning by how it sounds and the way it's expressed. When we cherish something or someone, we hold it or them in high regard with love, adoration, even worship.

We take some things to heart in ways that aren't helpful. Criticism—especially when mean-spirited—can crush our heart and break our spirit. Whether accurate or not, criticisms tend to play like a never-ending tape in our mind.

Flattery taken to heart is a trap. It's self-deluding and sets us up to fall when we crash into reality. Like someone who can't carry a tune trying out on the American Idol stage because family or friends tell them they sing well.

God's design for the parent-child relationship is remarkable. It's a picture and model of God's original design for the relationship between Him and humanity.

Working with abandoned babies and children gave my wife and I a much greater appreciation of this. We saw the longing in every child to belong to their own family. This is something no institution, no matter how well run, could ever fulfill.