I've had a few glorious days now of being deep in thought and conversation with God as he speaks to me about life and love, about my past, present, and future. Today started out no different. We went for a hike in a national park here in Malaysia. I love being out in nature especially if I'm getting to be active. I quickly fell into a pace a little brisker than my team and soon found I was walking alone. There is something so invigorating about walking through a forested mountain along a coastline. The combination of strength, beauty, and adventure stirs something inside of me. Jesus was right beside me just as giddy as I was, which of course made me even more excited. I was enjoying just spending time with him, delighting in each other and everything around us. I was feeling so absolutely loved. The sounds of the forest sang to me and I would try and sing some expression of my love in return. It likely sounded ridiculous but I went with it anyway. I felt so alive and so in love.
I kept walking and was pondering and discussing with him all sorts of things. One topic I was wondering about was why I always felt this need to somehow prove myself, prove my value. Eventually I got to this point in the trail where you were at the top of an incline and the tree covering was briefly absent leaving you standing there under the open sky. Playfully and almost unconsciously I said aloud, "Do you see me?" I was slightly stunned by the question but he immediately responded with, "I always see you. I've never stopped looking." He just kept repeating it. "Beloved, I have never stopped looking. Beloved, I have never stopped looking…"
Then in my head I was no longer on a hike in a Malaysian national park but at my old elementary school looking at myself sitting alone on a bench at recess. I remember that moment well. I may have been athletic but i didn't want to play soccer with all the boys and I had not been allowed to play the make believe game with the girls in my class. So I sat there, alone, convinced that I was unlovely and not worth anyone's time. And again I heard him say, "Beloved, I have never stopped looking."
Sure enough, I now saw Jesus sitting next to me on that bench. He was staring at me and his heart was breaking for my little girl heart that he knew was being pierced with an arrow that would remain there for a long, long time. And I knew he sat there longing to take it away. I just kept reliving the memory and then I cried the tears and I felt the pain I had numbed myself to way back then. It was that deep guttural cry that you know is attached to something way down inside. And I finally knew it wasn't true. That what I felt about my worth and beauty and identity as a little girl on that bench just wasn't true. That I was seen, and worth somebody's time. That I had, in and of my existence, something to offer and was something to behold. In that moment he invited the little girl to get off the bench and take his hand. He is still here now, inviting her to laugh and play. He is inviting her to be loved. He is inviting her to finally be free.
.
No longer do I have to prove that I am worthy of being seen. Instead, I get to just rest in the idea that he never stopped looking. I don't have to keep striving to be noticed or "worthwhile." I get to just rest and live. I get to just be. I have seen that image of me on that bench in my mind many times since that day, and now every time I see it, I will always see Jesus sitting right there beside me.
It will still be a process of healing. The immediate thoughts of "who can I tell?" or "who can I show?" are still there by residual habit. But with healing balm on the wound and truth known, I know those thoughts will continue to fade and lessen until that one glorious day when they are there no more.
