His Eye Is On The Sparrow

I’ve been itching to write for weeks now, but life just always takes me in a different direction every time I want to sit down and start. I was looking forward to the “laziness” of summer, but it seems to me that for our family, summer is often far more full of activity than the school year! But, I have finally set aside a few moments to dig in and write today – even if it is with all of the multiple earth-shattering emergencies that seem to come up whenever I sit down at the keyboard.

After my last post – Real Talk: Am I The Only One? – I was overwhelmed by the responses I got from so many people who said they could relate. It has made me realize that we don’t have enough real talk in life. And we definitely need more of it. One of the observations that I took away from everyone’s comments, messages, and texts is that so many of us feel invisible. That we all really want to be SEEN. Acknowledged. Loved. And heard. There is something so powerful about being raw, transparent, and exposed if you will, and still loved and accepted as we are. It’s a necessity knit into our very DNA to be KNOWN.

A few weeks after baring my soul last month, I went on my annual “silent retreat” – this time to another new location that I fell in love with. Only to learn on arrival that they have sold the place and have no idea what the new owners are planning for the property. Sigh. One of these days I will find a place that I allows me to return again. In the meantime it has given me a chance to explore new places and each one has somehow fit exactly what I needed for that retreat. Once again, this retreat did not disappoint and I came away clutching life changing Truth.

I have been on the journey towards wholeness for years and yet, for the first time I was able to see why I have felt so alone for so long. I have lived my life as one forsaken. An orphan. Disconnected. Unheard. Invisible. Even though I have made connections and formed meaningful relationships – marriage, children, family, friends – grown steadily in my faith, and been involved in ministry, my community and helping others, the orphan state of my heart that began in my formative years, hasn’t been properly addressed. And so I continue in the state that I have known best. The place that I am familiar with. I am loved, but I can’t properly receive it. It’s as though I don’t know how. I’m always waiting for the rejection to come, for the angry words, the disapproval or disappointment, looking for the “catch”. Waiting to wander again. Waiting for the proverbial other shoe to fall. Waiting to be on my own again. Even if sometimes it is only subconscious.

In the weeks leading up to my retreat those are the things that were going through my head and filling my heart and prayers. It was like I was seeing it all for the very first time. Like drawing back the curtain on a window that you walk past and ignore every day. Or reading something a million times over, but one day you read it again and suddenly – ILLUMINATION (if you read that in a Minion voice in your head, don’t worry, I did too as I wrote it 😂)!

When I miscarried my two babies back to back in 2016, I had a revelation of God as Abba, Father (I wrote about that experience here). He became real to me in a way I had never experienced before. But, while I claimed Him as my Father, I did not change how I viewed myself. I remained an orphan at heart. I did not yet have a revelation of my adoption into His family. Did not fully grasp that He has irrevocably tucked me into His heart. And if you do not recognize the Truth, if you don’t understand, you will not walk in it’s power. But, thank God for His mercy and His Spirit, ever in pursuit of us, enlightening our dark and drawing us closer into the embrace of the Son!

I feel like now I have a greater understanding of what Romans 12:2 is all about.

When we accept Jesus’ gift of salvation and choose to follow Christ, our spirit is reborn instantly. But, our minds are another matter. They need to be renewed. Renovated. I see it like going deep into a dark cave, far from the reach of natural light. Dark so encompassing, so oppressing that is seems to be alive, seething like a some malevolent beast waiting to devour. There is no way to see, nothing to guide your way. But bring a single candle into that darkness and the space is changed. The light pushes back the dark, illuminates what you see, where to step. Add more candles and the brightness will continue to change the space. But then one day, it’s a not a candle that is lit, but a stick of dynamite – a realization of light so powerful that it blows the cave roof wide open – exposing it to the Light of the Sun. And the cave is forever transformed.

That’s what it means to renew our minds. Each time we bring the Light of God’s Word into the darkness, it begins to change us. The more Light we bring in, the more Word we hear, the more Truth we meditate on, the more it renews us. Yes, the dark may lie in wait, ready to reclaim it’s territory, waiting for someone to stumble and snuff out a candle or to let it burn out, but it’s strength is limited.

Sometimes this renovation of light can seem like a very slow process. Like the light is barely brighter than the dark. Like nothing is happening. But Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word is alive, active, operative, effectual, powerful. So, we press on. Remembering that the darkness has no power to extinguish the light. And then one day, dynamite – that Revelation comes. And we are never the same again. We are transformed.

After publishing my post last month, the words of an old hymn that I hadn’t heard for years dropped into my heart. Just kept playing on repeat.

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heav’n and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

“His Eye Is On The Sparrow” by Civilla D. Martin

It was these words that I carried in my heart to my retreat. I arrived at a lovely little cottage and was looking forward to some time in nature and just walking the prayer paths through the trees on the property. But the weather and the mosquitoes that thought I was a walking buffet had other plans. The prayer path in the woods had flooded and was a muddy mess and sitting outside in the yard wasn’t possible with all the rain and the bugs. So, for the first time on one of my retreats, I was stuck inside. But that was ok. I had brought paints and a canvas and so I took them out and began to work on the picture that had begun forming in my head. I became so absorbed and drawn into the Truth unfolding on the canvas that I painted for the whole day. I lost track of time and only realized I had forgotten to eat when my brush strokes started weren’t smooth anymore and my hands began to shake. 11 hours later, I couldn’t lift my arm and the painting was almost finished. And in that process I came face to face with El Roi – The God Who sees me.

The God Who sees me. When the whisper of those words came, I knew I had read them in Scripture and I went to find them. El Roi is one of the Hebrew names of God and is found only one time in the Bible – in Genesis 16. It is interesting to me that the person who called Jehovah by this name was an invisible. She was a fugitive. A slave. A woman. Carrying in her womb the evidence of man’s attempt to fulfill God’s promises through his own means – a means forced on her without her consent. Hagar had fled the cruelty of her mistress and collapsed in the wilderness. She was wandering, alone, lying by a spring, clinging to life for both her and her unborn child. She thought she was forgotten. Abandoned. But then God called to her. He saw her. And He gave her hope and a promise for her future and for her son. In that moment, she called Him, The God Who sees me.

How could I have lived all these years and not seen this Truth? Is it really possible to live as an orphan, while surrounded by love every day and not recognize it? The thing is, I caught a glimpse of this a few years ago. It was like seeing something from a distance. There, but indistinct. But there is a difference between observation and revelation. Yes, I had seen the orphan state of my heart and begun to identify the lies that it speaks and expose them to the Truth, but until I put words on paper and shared that blog – unmasking my vulnerability to the world – I didn’t have a revelation of the Truth. That has come after. I feel like Saul might have felt after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, when Annaias prayed for him and the scales fell from his blind eyes, restoring his sight.

The God Who sees me. I read the words again and just sat in stillness with them. And I felt seen. I felt known. On a deeper level than I thought possible. And I realized that God has always specialized in seeing the unseen. Jesus went out of His way to find the lost, to bring the hidden into the light, to touch the untouchables. He hung out with the “undesirables” of society. Calling a motley band from those very ranks to be his closest friends and disciples. God is constant. He does not change and He is still seeing the invisible today. So, why should it surprise me that He would see me? I don’t know why, but it did. But this time it was not just an observation, it was REVELATION. And in that revelation, something deep in my core found rest. I know I have come home.

I’ve begun to drop anchor. To put down roots. Ready to stop the running and be still. And just be loved. Because the One Who holds my heart is breathing new Life and sealing all the cracks. And in being seen I can finally see. More clearly than I ever have before and oh, how I want the world around me to know what I am learning anew day by day.

So, I will leave you with this thought. No matter where you are today. Whether surrounded by the candles of illuminating Truth, or holding a stick of dynamite, or in a cave of black so deep you cannot see, El Roi sees. He knows. And He loves. May the revelation of The God Who Sees Me, surround you, overtake you, transform you.