I don’t know how.
All I do is answer the phone and my mom knows already.
Are you okay? You don’t sound quite right.
Sad.
Upset.
Sick.
Tired.
It doesn’t really make a difference.
Mom just knows.
It’s not that I’m trying to hide anything; I just don’t put it all out there on display. But she picks up on the subtleties that I don’t generally put out there.
When I did try to hide stuff back when I was a kid, she spotted the inconsistencies, the untruths. (A lot of the time, at least.)
I hated it back then, because I was usually trying to get away with something I shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.
But now I realize
she knows
because she loves me that much.
She paid attention to me.
She watched me
listened to me, even though it didn’t always feel like it
cared, enough to back off and try to give me space
but still keep a very watchful eye.
She knew and knows the depths of me in a way I never had any clue about.
I wonder if I have limited my view of God to that of a parent. Not the unconditionally loving, patient, compassionate parent, but a weird combination of hovering and inattentive at the same time.
I believe God created me and knows everything; nothing is hidden from Him. But I have always just assumed He knew because He knew. Not that He knew because He cared enough to know.
Enough to know every little detail about what I do, think, and just how I am (Psalm 139:2-3).
Maybe
I have been the kid
who assumed He just didn’t – or wouldn’t – understand.
And maybe, even if I can’t see or feel it, He cares too.