I wonder if one of the saddest questions we can ask ourselves is not, “Who have I become?”

But rather…

“What happened to the person God always saw?”

Not the person others expected us to be.

Not the person shaped by disappointment.

Not the person hidden beneath fear, betrayal, or years of trying to survive.

But the person God saw before any of those things ever touched our lives.

Life has a way of adding layers.

Heartbreak teaches us to guard our hearts.

Betrayal teaches us to distrust.

Failure whispers that we are not enough.

The opinions of others slowly become louder than the voice of the One who created us.

Little by little, we adapt.

Not always because we want to.

Sometimes simply because we are trying to make it through another day.

And somewhere along the way, we can begin to confuse what happened to us with who we are.

But they are not the same.

The wounds are real.

The disappointments are real.

The scars are real.

Yet none of them have the authority to rewrite the person God has always known.

When God looked at David, He saw a king before David ever wore a crown.

When He looked at Gideon, He called him a mighty warrior while Gideon still saw himself as the weakest.

When He looked at Peter, He saw the rock long before Peter stopped denying Him.

God has always had a way of seeing beyond the present version of us.

Not because He ignores our failures.

But because He sees what His grace is capable of restoring.

Perhaps healing is not becoming someone different.

Perhaps it is allowing God to uncover the person He never stopped seeing.

The one fear could not erase.

The one pain could not destroy.

The one disappointment could not redefine.

Maybe that is why Jesus spent so much of His ministry restoring people to themselves.

Not just healing bodies.

But restoring identities.

Calling people by names they had forgotten belonged to them.

Beloved.

Forgiven.

Chosen.

Redeemed.

Child.

I wonder if that is what God is still doing today.

Patiently peeling away everything life convinced us we had to become…

…until all that remains is the person He always saw.

Until next time,