“Mommy, watch!” She twirls through the living room, nightgown billowing around her legs. “Watch me!” she pleads, spinning and dancing in the hope of her mother’s regard.

“Please notice me,” the teenager begs silently, scrutinizing herself in the mirror, before casting her beauty as an offering in front of the lunchroom crowd or flaunting her tattoos and piercings in dark defiance.

We all have a need–a craving–to be noticed. And in the noticing, praised. Esteemed. Wanted.

Loved.

But too often our parents disappoint us. And our friends become our competition.

We finally find the one who promises to love us always, and we bind ourselves to them at an altar, only to discover that their neediness overshadows our own.

So we buckle down. Strive. Do what we must to stand out from the crowd. Make the deal. Get the thing. Monitor every bite we take. Thinking that if we are pretty enough, successful enough, or just… enough—we will finally gain the always-elusive approval of our parents, or our spouse, or Instagram. And especially, of ourselves.

How long do we keep it up, only to find that there are always more rungs on that ladder? That acceptance is always just out of reach?

But there is One, always watching. Ever seeing. Not to judge, but to uphold. Not in condemnation, but in love. Not with rejection, but an invitation.

“You are the God who sees me,” cried the slave girl after meeting Him in the wilderness. “I have seen your tears,” the Lord assured a suffering king Hezekiah.

Jesus saw Zaccheus in the tree. Matthew in his tax-collecter’s booth. Nathanael under the fig tree, and the fearful woman in the pressing crowd. Noticed them. Knew them better than they knew themselves.

“Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me,” sang David, the shepherd-king, “You have seen my thoughts from afar.”

So we come to him, weary and heavy-laden, and find rest for our souls. We lift our eyes in the wilderness, and find the well of living water. We stretch weary fingers to brush the edge of His robe, and feel healing and hope wash through our spirits. We find the ends of ourselves bound up in the beginnings of life, and learn to flourish under the kindness of our Father’s gaze.

He sees you, putting on a brave face. You, hidden in the shadows. And you, wearing your anger like armor against the world. He sets His table for the lost and the wounded, the betrayed and the overlooked, and issues the royal invitation to drink from the overflowing cup. To taste the bread, broken for you.

“See me,” we whisper, our candle faint against the darkness.

And He does.

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,

Psalm 33:18