How did I know? It was a feeling I didn't ignore and just go about having a pleasant meal.

"How did you know?"  She asked.

She had just arrived. She looked great.  I looked at her, I saw her eyes, my heart saw her eyes and ignoring her first answer of 'good', in response to me asking how she was, I asked her again.

She looked back at me as I was still looking at her.  I can't say it was anything the Lord was telling me, it was more of a feeling.  A feeling to not let the time together to just stream on in a friendly and polite manner.  I was so happy to see her, so happy to be together, but my heart wanted her heart to know that she was seen.

Total side note... My pastor is doing a series on this very topic, "Seen."  You must simply listen to it all... today's is probably posted on Tuesday, I think that is what they do and you should definitely listen.    http://renovatuschurch.com/media.php?pageID=5

Back to my friend... I wanted her to know that she was seen.  Beyond anything she did, she was known and loved and cherished.  I wanted that for her.. I want that for you....

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Did they hear his screams?  Did they know his torment?  Did they miss him as he lived away from them residing with the dead in the tombs?

He had more in common with the dead then with the living.  Did you ever feel that way?  Did life ever land you in a place where through your eyes you peered through sockets only to watch the world go by you yet you were so far removed from it all?

Do you want to scream?  Are you afraid even if you did no one would hear you?

Did you ever slice  at your own flesh? Tearing it to pieces.  Because the physical pain was nothing compared to that which was reverberating inside your being.


The Gerasene demoniac, is probably one of the characters of the bible that I have the most in common with, while my heart relates to Mary searching for Jesus' body among the tombs my life more resembled the demoniac having lived among them.

The verses in Mark 5 stay with me and tell my story....  living away from people, even if I lived amidst them I lived far far removed... keeping myself  hidden,  screaming... maybe not outwardly but the silent howls that filled out my being landed me time and time again bound and dying.

The pain and the torment, the mental anguish of a life so very horribly gone wrong.  Laying dazed off succumbing to the pull into nothingness was where I made my bed.

One of the parts I truly relate to is when after all is said and done and the people  "observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the "legion"; and they became frightened."

Have you ever been frightened by something Jesus was doing?  Have you ever been frightened by how thoroughly you are known? Truly known by Him!

You see I don't remember his name but I remember our interactions....

I remember being at this Christian college, newly saved... having met Jesus one rainy night  via a visitation after I had run away to join the Amish but landed my behind in a psych ward..( Seriously, if you haven't read my testimony none of that is a joke....) All I knew was that He spoke, He interacted, He healed, He saved, He delivered....  The notion that He didn't do those things were not a part of my understanding, nor did I realize that there were people who knowing Him didn't believe He still did those things...

I wouldn't have been saved, healed or delivered but Him acting and speaking and healing.

Now this other student had a problem.  He so thoroughly didn't believe that God did any of that except now there was this living, breathing testimony he couldn't make go away.  During the semester he would try to engage me in conversations about why I shouldn't be reading the NIV, and I would tell him that Jesus and I had just gotten back from a walk and how the Lord was teaching me that the bible really was the word of God, by holding my hand and talking to me as we walked... The guy I am sure thought I needed to be back at that psych hospital.

I had a really hard time believing that the Bible was actually the word of God, so what did Jesus do.. well, we went on these walks during which He would speak to me.  I would come back and tell a friend what He had said only for that friend to turn around and show me where word for word all that Jesus had spoken to me was in the bible.  Maybe it was that I was reading the NIV that really gave the guy the problem.  Maybe it was that Jesus so thoroughly wanted me to trust the bible, as the word of God that it really didn't matter to Him what version I was reading at the time.

I did make the switch to the NASB.  Just saying.

At the end of that semester he came up to me and told me that knowing me terrified him.  He couldn't dismiss how different my life was from what it had been, and he couldn't negate that the only one to ever witness to me, well.. it was Jesus answering my prayer asking if He was real.


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So back to my friend.

 Jesus wouldn't let the man follow Him.  Instead the instructions to "Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you."  Mark 5:20

"For once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." 1 Peter 2:10

I am even more undone by Hosea 2:23  "I will sow her, for Myself in the land.  I will have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion. And I will say to those who were not my people, 'You are My people!' And they will say, 'You are my God."

My life is summed up by 2 Corinthians 1:3-4  "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Did you ever ache to be seen? Really seen?  Cherished, really truly cherished? Known, really fully known?  I lived my whole life in that place... lost, frightened, alone...   It is terrifying to turn to your left and your right and even while you might be surrounded by people, you realize how thoroughly alone you are.

 I guess there is something within me that as far as it is with me if I can see, cherish and know someone than may it be... If I can speak into someone how seen, cherished and known they are by God then may I never be silent,  may one less person not feel like they have spent a whole meal with someone, or a day, or whatever time spent and walk away feeling like they played the right part but perished within.

I have known and received mercy and compassion and comfort... I remember so thoroughly what it feels like to not have them, to not belong to anyone or anything.. to not be a people, nor to know comfort.  It is a pain that if I can stand and interrupt within another than I will stand all day.

How did I know?  It was a feeling I didn't ignore and just go about having a pleasant meal.....