Recently I visited a small child in hospital.  She was not impressed at my visit and shut her eyes tightly as if to say “I can’t see you, therefore you are not there.”  She kept checking, peering through her long eyelashes – and then screwing her eyes tight shut, not wanting to interact with me at all, or even acknowledge my presence.

That was okay.  She was not well. She is only small.  I could understand that playing or even talking was not what she wanted to do.  As I watched and chatted to the adults present, she fell asleep.

And my heart melted with love for her.  She was so little, so vulnerable.  And as I watched, I suddenly had a sense of God watching us, with a melting heart, longing to take us in His arms and hold us.

But we will not let Him.  We peer at Him with half open eyes, but then screw them up shut tight, not wanting to share our life, our pain, our problems with Him.  Perhaps it is too much bother to open our lives to Him.  Perhaps we know what we are doing or struggling with is of our own making and do not want to face Him.  Perhaps we think He will not understand.

As I watched the little one, I suddenly knew that God feels like I did.  Nothing, nothing, we have ever done or said or thought can change His love for us.  He is our Father.  He loves us with an everlasting love.  He looks at us as we fall asleep at night, in the most vulnerable part of our day, and loves us.  Whether we acknowledge Him or not, whether we have our eyes open or screwed shut, He is there, watching us, just as I was watching this small child.

God loves us.

God loves you.

And whether you believe it or not, it is so, for He believes in you, He made you, and He is your Father.

How do you feel about Him watching you and loving you like this?