Passage
“O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off… For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.” — Psalm 139:1-3, 13
Reflection
There’s a quiet fear many women carry without ever saying it out loud: if someone truly knew me, the thoughts I don’t share and the parts I hide, they’d stop staying. So it’s often easier to show an edited version than to risk the full one.
Psalm 139 describes the exact opposite. God doesn’t know an edited version. He knows your sitting down and your rising up, your thoughts before you speak them, the word before it reaches your tongue. There’s nothing left there for him to discover.
And yet he stays. The same psalm that describes that total knowledge ends by speaking of a God who formed you with intention, in the womb, before anyone else knew you. That’s not the reaction of someone disappointed by seeing the full interior. It’s the tenderness of someone who designed it.
Being fully known and still loved is a combination few human relationships manage to offer without conditions. God offers it first, and from there it becomes safer to let others see, little by little, something more real than the edited version.
Prayer
Lord, you know me completely, and you’re still here. Help me stop hiding the parts I’m afraid to show, first before you, and then before the people who truly want me close. Thank you that there’s nothing in me that takes you by surprise. Amen.