Do you ever feel really small?  But on the inside feel so big?  I have often felt this way.

That’s one of the powerful things about pulling aside to be with God.  When I spend time with Him in worship, prayer, and in His Word, His presence makes me feel so loved, so powerful, so….noticed.

I grew up as the third child of four in my family - and the only girl in the busy mix of three brothers.  I know what it’s like to try and participate in my older brothers’ games and to always feel like I needed to be loud and sometimes even annoying to be noticed.  As I grew up, this desire to be noticed evolved: the quest to make people laugh….the need to express my personality with unique, unusual clothing…to desire to make bodacious statements and do risky things.

Some years later when I began serving in [Christian] ministry, I still had this longing to be noticed.  Awkwardly feeling my way through formal district councils, messy church politics, and still always feeling like the girl who was jumping in between her brothers’ game of fast pitch baseball, trying to participate and be noticed.

And then I found Him.  Or maybe He found me?  In one of the most painful seasons of life and ministry I had yet experienced, because off sheer desperation, I dove into the secret place.  "Doing" wasn't working for me anymore.  All I knew to do was simply be.  In Him.  Just be.

I would sit on the floor of our bedroom and pray and worship.  And then I would ask Him to come with his tangible presence.  I would ask the Holy Spirit to rest on me.  To fill me to overflowing.  And He would.  He would come in such power.  I was undone.  My heart was captured by the healing love of a perfect Father who loved me completely just as I was.  No expectation to do, to prove myself as “worthy of the call.”  Just the glorious joy of being with Him and in Him.

And I was found.  

Sometimes I still catch myself as that little girl in the back of the classroom wildly waving her hand, hoping someone will notice me.  But then I feel Him gently hold my hand and I remember - I’ve been found.  I’ve been noticed.  I can just be.