TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

I hate the way I look while driving.

I know you must think how random, but it’s simply the truth. I hunch over the wheel & cling for dear life. I’m a natural born disaster, as up tight as they come. You know the saying “brace yourself”? Well, no worries. I’m 24/7 one hundred percent “braced”. So when you pass me driving with one hand casually on the steering wheel, slouched back all no-big-deal, that’s my mind trying to remind me that I’m making people nervous just by looking at me. To try & pose a little more relaxed. Like I’m all, “whatever”. But really, my bodies fighting the urge to become one with my steering wheel, fists dying to clench a little tighter for good measure.

Yes, I’m ridiculous.

I also hate how much I love to wear my hair short. I wish I preferred longer to defer all Velma from Scooby Doo comparisons. I think I would rather be the girl who has everyone coming up to her, mistaking her for Taylor Swift. Not a girl that’s famous for the way she says, “jinkies!”

I’m completely humiliated by my left eye, too, you know. As if my being a champ about being born with half the sight the average person has wasn’t enough a battle, God had to make the left eye even a little more of a struggle bus, crossing when my glasses are off on occasion. So I’m about ¼ cross-eyed, since its one eye & only on occasion. So there’s that.

But I guess what I’m trying to make you understand more than anything is that I see you.

& sometimes that’s all that is important in a day.

Because I truly saw you & took you in as a human being the second I saw you wave me forward to proceed with my order. & I know how invisible it can feel working shifts for people who think of you as nothing more than an object standing between their appetite & an incomplete order, but I see you, & I heard you, & I still hear what you said to me every day, over again.

It broke my heart when you said that you had set the appointment with that surgeon, & again, when your voice broke a little as you whispered that it’s the one thing about yourself you aren’t comfortable with. I saw how you’re eyes dropped by that point, how you seemed to regret the words as they slipped out. & I want to have a fist fight with the world that’s left the rest of you feeling so small, left you feeling lacking, in need of a fix.

Because I know that voice that’s telling you it’s just your boobs. Your butt. Your nose. You love handles. Your stretch marks, Your laugh. Your voice. & I hear it, too. I’ve just learned it’s all a lie to blind me of the image of God that I bear. I’ve learned that my God is bigger & when I choose to see him instead of myself, unimportant things fade away & that voice is corked. In Christ, I am victorious & the devil & his whispers are under my feet. Meaningless.

You’re listening to the wrong person, love. I know it, because when I looked at you, I saw you & your worth.

I see you, & I didn’t know how to tell you I didn’t want you to go through with it. I didn’t know how to tell you to run.

You’re beautiful, sweet girl. You’re kind. You’ve got a big heart, & these aren’t things it takes years to find out. So I’m praying for you. That you would see the incredibly lovely being you are. That you would see Christ, & that would be enough.

Oh, & I don’t know if you heard me as I was walking away. It was so, so nice to meet you, too. You’re wonderful.