This week my heart was fractured. And anyone who has broken a bone before knows that whether it is your pinky toe or your arm, fractures hurt.

And being in pain tends to send some of us into hiding. Trapping ourselves into our own aloneness…into the safety of our own head space…or so we think.

Sometimes what feels so safe can actually become enemy territory. And that is where I found myself.

As I sat in my pain, trying to protect myself from the hurt I was feeling I ended up being trapped. And all of the defenses that I was employing against the pain turned into offensive strikes from my enemy’s hand.

Being alone…I have no friends…

No one cares…I don’t matter…

I am not valued by anyone…therefore I am not of value…

I need to fix this…panic when I realize I can’t…

I am sure you have your own strikes that you have encountered. And it all feeds off of the thought before, until you become trapped in your own mind and it is full of enemy snares.

I’ve been here before and I began to recognize it. I know what Truth is and I started to have glimpses of the fact that this was not.

Knowing myself and knowing that I need sleep before action, I called it a night and went to bed at 7pm. The unresolved turmoil was churning in my stomach and as I lay there, I cried to God and told him…”I need to know you care. I need to know you care about me…That I have value to you.” Soon after I drifted into a fitful night’s sleep.

I awoke early the next morning and enjoyed the quiet and stillness over a cup of coffee. Then, as I do most mornings, I grabbed my soft leather Bible and after looking at the reading plan I follow I flipped to Psalm 139.

“O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.”

God begins to remind me that He knows me…each and every part of me…the good and the bad.

The Psalm goes on and talks about there is no where that we can go to get away from His presence. Nothing that we think, say, or do is hidden from Him.

“If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.“

“My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.“

If anyone knows me, He does.

Then I think of Romans 8:38-39…”For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.“

And He loves me.

Knowing Him helps me navigate the ups and downs of this life. Knowing Him sustains me

And He knows me…and loves me.

He reminded me that I am valued by the One who created me.

And that is more than enough.