more than many

Normally, flying over the world from one city to another at 33,000 feet, I look out the window and see just the tops of clouds. It was surprising today to look out and see roads and trees, houses and fields.
I began to talk to God.
This is what I imagined you see, Lord, when you look at us from Heaven. Just the vague yet beautiful expanse of world below. And that there was so much in that vision that was very far away.
And that's precisely why I thought I could hide--from you, as well as your love, your wrath, your comfort, your fury.
I had this idea that you only zoomed in on those who needed you. Distress and disorder calls, in my mind, flashed like beacons, and you would swoop down to rescue or reprimand. Avoiding being part of those signals, except in dire emergency, was my goal. Despite the addage, I believed that no attention was better than any attention at all.
Slowly, gently, over a very long time and a very long road, you have shown me just hoe wrong I was. About all of it.
I cannot--nor do I want to--hide from you. You see me where I am--in the eyes of each and every person I meet, I can find you. At times, I fall short, and see the hurt softened by mercy in your eyes at words or deeds better left unsaid, undone, considered, delayed. Other times, in my own pain, I find your compassion, your love, your hope for me in the eyes of another.
Where I most fell short was in daring to look into those eyes deep enough to see your heart within. You already know the reason: I dared not open my own.
Dear Lord, I thank you for holding my heart. For knowing each hair on my head. For encouraging me, ever so gently, ever so firmly, to be unafraid. For telling me, again and again, how much I mean to you; that I not only have space and substance, but I have value. (Luke 12:7) Even--and especially--when I was (and am) resistant.
It has taken me time to accept these truths, and just a bit more to embrace them. But the point is, today I am acutely aware that you are not a being that is separate and apart from me. You are my God, and you are with me always.
And I love you.