❤️ These photos are a little over 4 years and 4 months apart. ❤️
The photo on the left was taken Valentine’s Day in 2018, during a season where I was deeply wrestling with self-inadequacy and self-worth; mistakes; purpose for life; and a huge longing to feel desired and noticed by someone amazing, to feel wanted. Although I was in a relationship with someone, the relationship was unhealthy in many ways. The greatest way being I had made that person an idol, looking to him to make me feel fulfilled and loved. In the middle of the mess, the confusion, and the idolatry, God had never left me (even though I felt He should). He made Himself incredibly real and tangible. As I sat in the cafeteria at college, eating a bag of chips with my lunch, feeling lost and empty, I found two heart-shaped potato chips in the tiny bag of chips. Immediately I felt like God was speaking to me through those two little chips: “Lorelle, I love you more than anyone else does or ever could. And I have invited you into My love through My greatest show of love, on a cross with My Son. I know the most intimate and secret things of your life, and yet, I still promise to always be faithful to you. You are Mine, and you can’t outrun or destroy My love toward you. Stop searching for a man to fulfill in you what only I can. You were made for Me: only I can fulfill your greatest desires to be loved and cherished.” That day rocked my world. I was in awe that God would show up to me in such a unique but ordinary way. He broke through all my loneliness and darkness in a way I couldn’t miss, in a way incredibly tangible I could feel His presence. Not only that… God had been planning this moment. From the time that potato was in the ground as a seed, God knew how it needed to be formed, what bag of chips it needed to go to, and where that bag of chips needed to be shipped. God was chasing me down with His unrelenting love through a bag of chips. Who else loved me like that?!
Ever since that first picture was taken, I find hearts everywhere I go now – sometimes in the strangest places, but always in ordinary places. Everytime they are a reminder to me that God loves me and is with me, right where I am in my ordinary spaces, and that he cares about the tiniest and biggest details of my life. Each time I find a heart, it’s like I have found a small, tangible, visible love letter from God’s heart to mine. When I find a heart, I know that I am seen and cherished by the One Who made me.
The second picture was taken a week and a half ago. It seems as though God decided that day would be an anniversary of sorts, a day to remember His faithfulness. Before finding the chips from the second picture, I had spent part of that day pondering how God – an invisible, intangible, supernatural being – continually lowers Himself to humanness in making Himself tangible to us. He brings Himself down to human experience and senses to draw near and make Himself known. And He doesn’t bend toward us this way just once, but over and over again all our lives to prove Himself to us, to remind us, to persuade us, to draw us. Then when I found those chips that evening, God again began to speak: “I see you, Lorelle. I always see you. Do you remember the moment I made Myself so real in this same way? The moment I lowered Myself to tangibility? To human experience and understanding? Do you remember the moment I broke through your fragile world to show you My love and Myself?”
Probably about 13 years ago as a high schooler, I prayed God would make Himself more real to me. I love how God is still answering that prayer in my life, and I know He will continue to answer it for the rest of my existence. How do I know this? Because that’s just Who He is. He – the Almighty, Most High God – wants to be known by us. And He will continue to lower Himself over again and again to make that possible. To me, that is beyond incredible. Below are a couple verses I was fascinated by as a high schooler. I loved the book of Hosea, a picture of a God with forgiveness, grace, and love like no other. I am more amazed by these verses now as my relationship with the Lord has changed and matured, as I have seen God for myself.
“And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.” (Hosea 2:19-20)
#iam1more