God our Seer
“God counts the stars by number,
giving each one a name.”
Psalm 147:4 CEB
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The state of my room is the best way to gauge my mental health. The cleaner it is, the better I’m doing. For the past few months, my room has been a wreck. My clothes mostly exist in a large pile in front of my closet, the books I’m currently reading are intermingled with random trinkets in a disorganized mess on the floor next to my bed, and every table and desk are covered in random pieces of paper, jewelry, makeup, and whatever else I’ve abandoned. But this weekend, I started to clean my room. Slowly but surely, the tops of my desks and tables again became visible, my clothes were folded and hung in their proper places, my books took their rightful places on my bookshelf, and my bed was made. My room finally started to look like my room again and I saw it begin to come alive as a functional, peaceful, organized, joyous space again. I think this is a prime example of how God sees us.
Now, I know that might sound strange, but allow me to explain: we often feel/say that we are a mess. We lose sight of who we are amidst the chaos of life. We lose sight of our passions and goals, but even more we lose sight of our ethos and who we are at our core. To put it as Katy Perry once did, we often feel “like a plastic bag drifting through the wind wanting to start again”. But here’s the thing: I, the creator of my room, still knew what it was like amidst the chaos. I still knew what my room had in it and what it is supposed to be even when it hadn’t looked that way or been organized in months. I still looked at it and knew it had the potential to be restored to its former glory and even grown in ways that made it better. God, our creator, sees us the same way.
The last few months have not been my best. I have frequently felt disconnected and isolated. I have struggled to see myself and remember who I am in the midst of my everyday life. I have felt unseen by those around me and by God. I can’t say I’m better, and I can’t necessarily say I feel fully “seen” by anyone - God, myself, or other - at this point, but lately, I have been getting little glimpses of who I truly am and who I am becoming. Some of that I attribute to divine work and revelation, some of it I attribute to deep self-work, and some of it I see as the culmination of both.
As I start to emerge from this time and I look back onto certain moments, experience others, and look forward to even more, I know a handful of things to be true: God saw me when I couldn’t see myself. He saw my original goodness. He saw how what was intended for evil would be used for good. He saw the way I had lost myself and reminded me of who I - at my core - am. He saw the person I was, am, and will be and he has called them all “very good”.
May you know that, like a person with a messy room, God still sees you, knows you, and chooses to dwell in and with you - all of you.