If you don’t know my son Jackson, you wouldn’t know his all-time favorite food is tacos. I mean, the boy got a tortilla blanket and his very own taco holders last year for his birthday.

And if you don’t know Jackson, you’d also never know that his addiction to tacos is followed closely by an obsession with claw machines. That’s right, the ridiculously rigged game that leaves children all across America heartbroken and penniless is my son’s passion. Oddly enough, he’s weirdly good at it.

Knowing Jackson’s two loves, it comes as no surprise that his favorite restaurant in Columbia is Casa Linda, our local Mexican restaurant, where he can indulge in his need for tacos and his zeal for the claw. I admit, it’s not the worst way to blow two dollars, since he usually shares his prizes with his brothers.

What we only recently discovered is that Jackson can play the claw game from the comfort of our very own home, thanks to an app called Clawee. Granted, we would miss out on queso and margaritas at Casa Linda, but he was delighted by the possibility of 24/7 claw access.

Jackson and I are the early risers in our house. This week, I was dozing on the couch while he checked MLB scores on my phone. In my sleepy haze, I heard him casually mention he was going to try out Clawee. After a few minutes of blissful silence, I was jarred awake by an exclamation of “I won!” followed by words that sent shivers down my spine: “Mom, do I press the ‘ship now’ button?”

“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

I sprang off the couch like it was on fire and quickly scrambled to delete the app before Jackson could have a truck load of toy Pikachus delivered to our house, courtesy of my Apple Pay. In his defense, he did claim he would save them for Reeves’ birthday.

Throughout all of the chaos, Jackson kept insisting, “But, Mom, it’s free.” Bless his sweet, innocent heart. I tried to explain that the Pikachu wasn’t really free. At some point, somebody was going to have to pay for something, and since that somebody was most likely going to be me, I had to draw the line before he maxed out my credit card buying stuffed animals. (I should note, that’s actually a true genetic possibility, seeing as how I did that exact thing once buying Beanie Babies in college, and no, I truly cannot explain how or why that situation happened.)

Anyway, maybe because this happened Monday morning and Easter was on my mind from church the day before, I said something like, “Nothing in this world is free, Jack . . . well, nothing except God’s love, and Jesus actually paid a price for that, but it’s free to us.” Evidently, 6 a.m. isn’t the best time to have a theological conversation with a nine year old. Jackson promptly hopped off the couch to wake up his brother Reeves and tell him how mean his mom is and how she wouldn’t let his loving brother win him a mailbox full of “free” Pikachus. Thanks, Jack.

After triple checking that Clawee was, in fact, deleted, I fixed a cup of coffee and opened my journal, where I came face to face with my verse of the day, Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I always say God is the original Alexa with the ability to make scriptures appear minutes after I talk about them. When God sends me the same memo in multiple ways, it’s cool; when Alexa sends me ads, it’s just plain creepy.

This message was loud and clear- the gift of God’s everlasting love is free to us without price. God isn’t playing any sort of game with us, and he hasn’t rigged the outcome so that we end up empty handed. If we let God into our hearts, we win the incredible blessings he has for us, including eternal life. God longs to drop his gifts into our hands, we just have to open them and be willing to receive everything he has in store for us.

As we prepare to celebrate Easter, let’s focus on the real prize we’ve won: God sent his one and only son to die for our sins. May we receive this offering of his love with open hands, thankful for his sacrifice and his grace, and may we strive to share his love with others each and every day.

Happy Easter!