Pieces...

Honesty time: For the past several weeks I have been going through a sort of “dry spell” with the Lord. I have been feeling very distant from Him and sort of helpless surrounded by my busy life. So, I finally pulled out what has become my favorite devotional book. The book was written by the Cageless Birds and is called “Cultivate volume 1 (The Head to Heart Journey)”. I found where I had left off in the book and the prompt was called “Eyes to See”. I have to admit in my current state this title did not sound particularly encouraging to me because honestly, I wanted God to reach out to me, not the other way around. I read the whole page and at the end I saw the words “Do you feel like your life is a scattered mess of pieces?” and immediately my heart cried out “YES!” Have you ever had a moment like that? Where your heart feels so deeply broken that you can’t begin to describe what you’re feeling and then you hear it, and you just know that YES, this is the source of my heartbreak! The thing that really broke me was the sentence that followed, “What do you believe God sees when He looks at you?”. Wow, that one cuts pretty deep…have you ever stopped and thought, what does God see when He looks at me? I highly encourage it, because if you’re anything like me, you’re believing some lies about your Father. This is what I wrote in response to these two questions.

Yes, 100%. My life feels like a broken, jumbled up, mess of pieces right now. I feel tired, awkward, bent out of shape, and useless. I feel like a fraud and a hypocrite. I feel like Humpty Dumpty—like my pieces will never fit together again, much less fit into any sort of “bigger picture”. Satan has been having a hay-day with my thoughts lately, so much so that he’s convinced me that I actually DESERVE his lies—that’s pretty bad! He’s made me feel like a burden to everyone around me, I’ve even felt like a burden to God.

Writing down everything I had been thinking and feeling about myself made me realize that what I had been believing was nonsense. But simply calling out the lies wasn’t enough, what I really needed was to find the truth. So, I asked Him. I sat quietly and waited for Him to tell me what he thought about me. And after a few minutes (Ok, I lied, it was probably 30 seconds) I got annoyed with His silence and even more annoyed by the song that was suddenly stuck in my head. It grew louder and louder until all I could focus on was the words of the song. I was so frustrated that this stupid song was ruining my quiet time with God, but it was so stuck in my head, I had to sing it anyways. That’s when I realized what the words were actually saying, “You are brave, unique, set apart, a masterpiece, a work of art, living out what you believe, being who you’re made to be, I love to see the way that you are so unusual, I think you’re beautiful”

WOW, do you see what He did there? He gave me an earworm to tell me what He thinks about me. I just kind of chuckled to myself once I realized. And I sat and thanked Him for being such a good Father to me.

Psalm 33:13-15 says, “From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth – he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.”

God sees me, He sees you. He sees the things you think about yourself. He sees how you look at yourself in the mirror. He sees what you really think about your coworkers, friends, and family. He sees your worries, your fears, and your failures. He sees EVERYTHING about you. And His response?

Perfect Love.

Can you believe it? He actually sees everything you do, say, think, believe, and feel and He DOESN’T run away, He stays, and He loves. It’s hard for me to believe in a love like that, but whenever I test it, He never fails me.

If you’re reading this and feeling the same way I was, I encourage you to be quiet with the Lord and ask Him what he thinks about you. He might not say anything right away, He may not say anything for a while, or maybe He will show you something like the song I heard, or something will happen during the day and you will be able to feel how much He loves you. No matter how God speaks to you, He WILL show you His love because one of His favorite things is loving His children.

The picture at the top of this post is something I created after processing through everything. I kept seeing puzzle pieces and hearing these words by Meredith Andrews, so I put them together and slapped some glitter on it, and now it's one of my favorite things! Also, a big thanks to my friend Megan who does artsy things with me and was kind enough to let me ruin one of her puzzles ;)

Quick Update: I leave for Perth in 11 days and I only need about $1,500 more for my entire trip to be covered. It has been a tough season of goodbyes and God is definitely holding my heart through all of it. I am having a going away party on July 1st, so if you’re interested in coming, please reach out and I will give you more details. Please continue to pray for me as I prepare to leave :)