The Friday conversation was about feeling seen, heard and loved. I was looking for a picture to post with the blog and I came across this one. I kept coming back to it. The look on Becklee’s face as she is looking at me while everyone else is looking at, and listening to Roya is precious and makes me feel loved. I didn’t even see it in real time, in the moment, but somehow the look captures what it is to be seen and heard and loved when you aren’t doing or saying anything.
The thread that started and ended our conversation and prayer today was we both could say we are feeling seen, heard, and loved. Things aren’t easy, there is much to pray over still but the thread that kept being woven through our conversation was that at this moment in time, we can say we feel seen, heard and loved.
It wouldn’t feel as significant as it does, without recently or in past months and maybe years experiencing feelings of being unnoticed, quiet, and not so lovely.
Shift
What is the shift?
There is a quote by Jason Upton that says: If you are going to grow corn, you have to go at the speed of corn.
I wonder if the same could be said about healing. Wounds only heal as fast as the body heals from the inside out.
Growth can’t be rushed and neither can healing. Healing is never complete this side of heaven; there will always be more wounds this side of glory. Growth will never be done until we reach heaven; if we are not growing we are dead. Growth and healing happen simultaneously. But maybe the shift is more growth than healing opens us up to see, hear and love in a new way.
To be seen, heard and loved has always been available in Christ but we need to wait on the Lord to feel it, to see fruit of it.
1 Corinthians 2:9
What no eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no human heart has conceived—
God has prepared these things for those who love him.
Yes! I have been reading Augustine’s Confessions, and what blows my mind is how I know this God he speaks of. As St. Augustine confesses the wretchedness of his winding path to salvation and declares his passion for God – and God’s passion for him – I see my own experience. What strikes me is how a man in 4th century Algeria can express his journey of sin and redemption and relationship with God in a way that so resonates it could be written by my own (a woman’s) hand in 21st century America. The reason for this, of course, is that Adonai is and always has been and always will be. He is the same across space and time, and He is for both men and women. So when I see the seasons of tilling and planting, growing and harvesting that each of us goes through, I am comforted and encouraged.
Growth and Healing
Our conversation Friday brought the realization that each of us has been in a season of healing – what I think God might consider tilling – for the past few years. Wounds were inflicted by very different weapons of the enemy, but the result was the same: We both, in our own ways, withdrew to a lonely place to pray.
I know we both are tempted to brush aside the details and skip over the stories of all that happened in those healing years, but I think we need to stay here a while. I think the miracles that unfold in the secret place are the stories that God gives us to share – the confessions and devotions that others can read, whether now or 1,700 years from now, and be reminded of just how steadfast and faithful God is. Be reminded that they are not alone – that others have walked the path and found Adonai to be right there every step of the way.
Jenay
That’s just it. We don’t grow and heal if we don’t withdraw to that lonely place to pray to let God reveal Himself and heal the wounds of our heart. Seeds break down and take root underground, and then you see the result of what has been happening underground come to light. You see life bloom into something others can see and enjoy. I think that is the love that we feel and see.
It’s a process, and it never ends but there is a new shoot we see sprouting. Words prayed are coming to light and they get to be shared. I believe feeling seen, heard and loved is the result of seeking, listening and loving God.
Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
All Love Starts With God
Loving God with all that we have and all that we are is what allows us to love others and to feel loved by God and others. Seeking Him, hearing Him, and loving him teaches us how seen, heard and loved we really are in this life and forever.
And that command shows up throughout scripture because it is THE command. Love. So simple and yet so, so difficult for us. I want to share something from Augustine here, because it also beautifully expresses this idea:
“Be not foolish, my soul, nor let the ear of your heart be deafened with the clamour of your folly. Listen. The Word Himself calls to you to return, and with Him is the place of peace that shall not be broken, where your love will not be forsaken unless it first forsake. . . . Man is a great deep, Lord. You number his very hairs and they are not lost in Your sight: but the hairs of his head are easier to number than his affections and the movements of his heart.”
When we are wounded we tend to run in circles, trying to escape the pain. Really, God calls us to slow down, withdraw, and allow Him to heal us, to be the governor of our hearts and emotions. Only in that will we feel the love that never forsakes.
God Speed
You mentioned the Jason Upton analogy of growing corn in his teaching titled: It Takes Time, which reminds me of Danny Lund’s video: Godspeed: The Pace of Being Known (on Vimeo). It’s a picture of what it looks like to slow down, know, and be known and includes commentary from Eugene Peterson, N.T. Wright, and Granny Wallace.
Ultimately, if we are going to grow in relationship with God, we must go at God’s speed.
Jenay – A picture of how I have felt loved for generations.
