You matter...you really do!

Publisher's note:  Leah is a friend of mine and The Patriots Press, and is about as gentle and kind a soul as you will find anywhere.  I hope her words and meaning hit you as they did me.

Leah:  As I was backstage last night, unplugging my charger and packing my things, a friend came in and I asked her to sit with me a moment.  Ninety-nine percent of Academy staff, students, family, etc., had gone home.

We chatted and she asked me how I was.  You know how a conversation pauses...and the words you just exchanged are hanging in the air, and you and your friend are sitting there, looking at one another pleasantly...?

Well we were in that atmosphere when she opens her mouth and asks me, "how are you?” Just like that.

Sigh...I really don't like answering that question, so I said I was fine.  And she of course, looked at me with a more penetrating gaze and said whatever it was she said while I squirmed beneath her scrutiny.

She continued speaking and then a phrase came out of her mouth that stopped my ears from hearing anything else.  Do you know how your mind stops when something really good happens to you?

You don't hear a word anyone says because for you, time has stopped.  Well, that's what happened last night.

"How are you?"  I smile and answer.  She gives me the hard look and continues..."okay, because when I pray for you I get the impression that..."  And that is when time stopped for me. Time!  Thought!  Even emotion!  I was stunned.  Truth seeped into my intellect slowly.  "She prays for me."  It is difficult to explain how I felt inside upon that revelation.

I walk through each day here in Michigan - away from intimate family - with some friends and peers I've opened my life to, but I don't see myself as anyone so precious that any of them would petition the Lord on my behalf.  

She said it so casually, too, like, "when I brush my teeth," or "when I'm combing my hair...” something we would do as a part of our daily routine.  But it isn't a mundane thing.  It is a big, big thing.

When you pray for someone you are giving them a boost they can't see.  You are loving them in action, on purpose.  You are bearing their burdens with them.  You are asking "Dad" to keep an eye out for your sister, or brother.  "Help them out, Father; You know what they need.  Keep them from doing anything stupid."  And you are affirming their value, to God, in your life, and on this earth.

My heart was softer than usual for the rest of the night.  I'm affected. I feel like I am made of purest gold and some one noticed.  My heart, where it was weak, is bound up tightly and bolstered.

I'm valuable.  I'm loved.  I ‘know’ these things.  But last night the knowledge became tangible, like I could hold it and hug it to my breast, only it was better than that because it was inside of me.

Turning point.  Never the same.  I am altered.  I am altered because my name was a whisper on someone's lips.  Now I said all of that to tell you this: When someone prays for you, you don't know it, but they do.  Yes they do!  Even if you could somehow convince me that NO one on the whole of planet earth prays for you, I'd still not believe you.  Do you know why?  Because...in the Bible it says the Son sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for the saints.

So you see?  I can still point upward and say, "Yes. They. Do."  You matter.

Pastor Phil has it written on the walls in the church.  "All people matter to God."  You matter, honey.  To someone, somewhere.  And to God.  I am basking in the warmth of real love tonight, and I send you a wholesome loving embrace if you need it.

Leah