I’m standing just inside the door, watching as my mom walks away from me. Not looking back at me. Not once looking for me.
I’ve seen this scene so many times before. I’m not sure whether it started out as a memory of something real that actually happened to me, or whether it began as a dream. Regardless, it is something that I have relived as a dream so many times that it might as well have been real. In this dream, I felt how it feels to be completely alone and abandoned, how it feels to want so much for someone, anyone, to hear me. Only to be met with silence. There is no one there, and I am all alone.
In my dream, I’m maybe two or three years old. I’m standing there, inside this building, in the front lobby that has glass doors and walls. Watching as my mom walks away from me. Leaving me. I’m crying, sobbing, yelling even- doing anything to try to get her attention. To get her to stop and hear me. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t hear me. She doesn’t even turn back once.
Jesus, where were you here? I know you were there.
For the first time, I stop and turn, and actually look around the room that’s surrounding me. I look, and Jesus is there. I’ve never seen him there before, but, somehow, I know that he has been there all along. I just never saw him.
Maybe I just never looked for him.
No, he wasn’t just standing with me, he was holding me, little two year old me, in his arms the whole time.
The whole time until now, my gaze had been steadily fixed on my mom’s retreating back, but, now, I watch as Jesus gently draws my face around, turning my gaze from staring at my mom’s retreating back to meet his gaze instead.
He has the biggest, most beautiful, wonderful eyes. They are so kind and full of understanding. I can see the sorrow in his eyes- I can see that he sees and feels same pain and abandonment that I am feeling.
He tells me, “I know you want this- to be loved and not left- look at me. Others you love and whom you desperately want to love you, who should love you, who have even promised to always love you, will leave you. When that happens, I want you to turn your gaze on me. I’m always with you. I love you. I will never leave you. I have never left you.
Whenever that happens, I just want you to look at me. To look to me for the love and value and acceptance you so desperately desire. You don’t have to strive anymore or even at all to receive my love- you already have it- you are already accepted and loved and wanted and desired- I gave my life- I gave everything to hold you- so that you would know that we would never be apart- so that you would never be alone.
You’ve sought this in other things- come back to me- see the grace in my eyes and feel it in my embrace and accept it. Accept it. Let me hold you. I know what you’ve done- now you’re afraid to look at me in my eyes- but look at me- I love you. Let me free you. Let go and take hold of the greater things I have for you.
You always thought you had to work so hard so that people wouldn’t leave- so that people would want you. In the back of your mind, you were always afraid that they would leave. You don’t have to do that for me. Susannah, I made you. I want you.
Not good enough? I chose you. I made you. I’ve already given you my acceptance- come to me and live in it- in the strength and identity that I’ve called you into. I’ve given you a strong spirit for a reason- you’re going to see my glory.
Turn your face to me– turn your eyes, your gaze, only to me- let go of the pain and the hurt and the fear and the doubts that you’ve been holding onto for so long.
You’ve been in relationships before where you knew that that person’s love and acceptance was dependent upon your performance. That you were loved when you were good, but unwanted and sent away, rejected, when you failed to meet their expectations.
It is not that way with me. Be patient- you don’t understand me because you’ve never seen anyone like me before. I’m like nothing you’ve ever known before. I won’t use you. I will not misuse you. I am like nothing the world has ever seen—yet exactly what it is so desperately thirsty for.
I want you to be that to the world.
I made you to be a vessel to show the world my love and acceptance for them. I want you to live confidently out of the knowledge of your love and acceptance from me. Then you can give out of that to others. I made you for that.”
He made you for that too.
