I wish you could see yourself the way I do

I wish you could see yourself the way I see you!

He was all flummoxed.  All concerned.  Reasonably so.  I’d communicated something-or-other about how I’m-not-good-enough-for-this or don’t-deserve-this  OR THAT.  I’d weaseled my way out of kind words and decided instead to settle on why it’s okay for someone to treat me poorly because, really, it was all just a big misunderstanding.  And yes, this friend loves me -of course- this friend just isn’t sensitive to my issues.  And besides, I can’t expect to be treated like a normal human being all the time.  I spit excuses faster than a speeding bullet.

I wish you could see yourself the way I see you, he reiterates.

It carried weight for me.  He’d said it with so much emotion, so much like a black pastor when he’s hoopin’, heavin’ & hollerin’.  It was filled with all of that longing and all of that frustration because he knows and I know it: I don’t see myself the way he sees me.

I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. I wish you could see that you don’t deserve this.

There was something so deeply loving, deeply accepting about that sentiment.

He sees me.

He sees me as beautiful and worthy.

He wants me to see me the way he sees me.

He communicates he wants me to see me the way he sees me.

It’s one of my new favorite phrases, I think. It’s the one I want to whisper to myself when I’m spitting a steady flow of self-hatred at my battle weary self-defenses.

It’s the one I want to whisper -perhaps scream- to you when I hear you tell yourself why not your not worth it.

It’s the one I want to get tatted up on myself if I could afford any of the 7 additional tats I’m dreaming up.

It’s the phrase running through my head each day for the past week ever since he said it. It’s the phrase I’m considering.

Because what does it mean when someone CALLS OUT of you truth and beauty, integrity, redemption and hope that you can’t grasp but is somehow deep down in there?

What does it mean when Marla gets a little feisty with me, “YOU. ARE. Redeemed!” but I feel anything but?

I wonder if redemption explains itself fully in hindsight? I wonder if you pull up a chair and read those old journals and marvel at all that redemption that happened while you were barely able to see straight.  I wonder if Cindy is right, if I’m in the middle of it.  She says, 10 years from now, we’ll laugh together at all this.  Now that’s a good one.

We will make it, she says.  I wish you saw yourself the way I see you, he says.

I open the journal.  I write it down.

Baby girl, I wish you could see your self the way he sees you, with all of the beauty and goodness in which she sees you…the way God sees you. I know you don’t believe me, you or them, but you are redeemed.  You are, in fact, God’s daughter, who is, ahem, The King.  No one messes with The King’s daughter unless they want to get their head lopped off.  Maybe, just for today, maybe you could get out of the pig pen and just.for.this.moment trudge up to the royal palace as if you belong there.  As if there’s a room in there just for you.  Maybe if you sit there long enough, maybe-just-maybe you’ll get comfortable being treated like the Princess you are.  Maybe you’ll see differently.  Maybe you’ll see you the way they all do.

I pray for you today, that you too, can see yourself through the eyes of those who love you most.