He sees you, he knows you, really knows you. And even after all that he still wants you.

She looked out at the colorfully vibrant fall day but all she could see were trees and leaves that needed to be picked up and burnt.  Gripping, hard, the steering wheel as she drove out of town she mustered all her thoughts and frustration, tiredness, worry, and expectations, impatience, and imperfections...  She brought them all to the front of her mind and breathed in deep about to scream, scream loud for the why not yet of fulfillment, and rest, comfort, and fullness, promise, perfection... but no sound came, only pressure so profound it gripped inside her throat and inside her mind.

 She didn't want to be anymore, she didn't understand why He hasn't come yet and made all this mess of a world perfect.  She had bills to pay, A's to make, papers to write, problems to solve, hearts to heal, her heart to heal...  If she were Him, she'd be back by now...  She tells Him so too, she asks him, "What the heck [he's] doing up there!"  

I mean, doesn't He see this, this brokenness that keeps breaking more and more every hour of every moment of every day?!  She looks ahead toward the winding road with the questions and she will not step down without an answer.

She's just tired of this battle and this place, and these expectations she's set for herself and others.  She shares her cares with a mom 2 hours west over a phone full of life.  "What right do you have to not expect to be human?  God didn't make you expecting you to perfectly live your life.  He made you perfectly knowing you'd fail and fall and never be worthy."  

Her mind shifts, "Oh but sinning loved one don't you know, He's already won the victory, he doesn't need you to look or be perfect because He was and is perfect.   And the glory of it all is that's not all, he perfectly died for you, us, them.  He wants you so much more than he wants himself to live.  His perfect love meets us in our deep and dark and desperate.  Are you listening?  Are you ready?  Are you willing? Did you know He rose?  Did you know He won?  And when He won did you know that your battle for perfection to make it became meaningless? So why are you still beating your heart, your mind, your body.  

He sees you, he knows you, really knows you.  And even after all that he still wants you."

The leaves are falling and the autumn sun is shining bright.  Most say the sun makes the colors of the day dimmer but somehow she sees them brighter now.  The gold, red, and yellows pop vividly against the light brown and green grounds.  

"Because I love them, and because I love you."  He softly reminds her that his time will come, but it will come perfectly, when all have had a chance to humbly repent at his feet.  Not because they're perfect or ever going to be but because he was, is, perfect for us.  So, the world will keep on going round and down deeper into imperfection but, He's already perfectly covered those who've said yes and turned the narrower way.

Have you said yes, today?  Oh, He wants us all and we all don't know.

He lights her heart with a desire to go and tell and shine bright for Him in the glory of his Son.  In His light her desires fade.  Her frustration, tiredness, worry, expectations, impatience and imperfection are all shielded and washed white by His grace and not by her might.  

She knows she's selfish, mainly, but oh His grace, that elegantly brings her to be selfless.  To have eyes to see his heart for her, for you, for them.  

The truth is she'll fall again and so will you but, the hope is if we're willing when our need for Him comes will we let him heal us?  Will we let Him blow his grace softly over our wounds as a mother does the scrapings on her child's knee?    Do we give it up to him or do we hold it deep inside saying we're not worthy or why would He let that happen to me, her, them?  Do we let that hurt, that scar remind us of his mending us to be more like him?  Or do we twist away and let it fest to hurt forevermore? In repentance there is freedom, and in your freedom from your failings he'll give you hope...  

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

'For your sake we face death all day long;

    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

-Romans 8:33-39

Not just hope for you but hope and freedom for those you're willing to share your scars with.  The ones who ask you how it happened.  Will you look up with a smile, filled with the reflection of when He blew truth and love and hope and peace and forgiveness over it?  Do you remember that day, when He took away your deepest pains, your realest hurts, your greatest fears?  Don't you want to?

Oh the bliss we have to share, but the times we share it wrong.  My hope is not that you be me but that you'll be by me one day in His Perfect Place, saved by grace.
So, forgive me when I'm tired and cold or have forgotten the blowing of His gracious healing.  Forgive me when I don't shine Him but scream out me.

Forgive yourself too...

Dearly wandering Loved One, you'll never get it all right but there will be moments of light amid the dark and when you call He will answer.  Oh, how He'll answer...

In this world we will stumble and fall but He says that nothing can ever separate us from His love.  So do not wait for perfection to live in His redemption.  

Can you see Him, in that darkness?  Can you hear him calling you to luminous life?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God."

- John 3:16-21

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

    and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father."

-Philippians 2:1-11