I was at a Christmas school performance today, standing in the very back behind iPhones, cameras, video recorders, mothers waving and dads holding toddlers on their shoulders.

Toddlers can really block a view when they are up that high.

And, of course, I was watching the only person in the world at that performance that mattered to me.  Her hair was mussed in that after recess sort of way and she had on her christmas school performance scarf.  The boys blue, the girls pink.  I like pink. 

And then I noticed her.  She was on the top left row of the choir bleachers and while the rest of the children were singing about Rudolph and his need to get a less shiny nose, this little girl was searching the crowd.  I think she was looking for her mom.  Or maybe her dad.  Or perhaps her grandparents were coming the way my Mom and Pop used to and she knew they would be there just the way I knew mine would.

But you know when a child scans the crowd mid-performance and then finally finds their parent?  That never happened.  She continued song after song to not sing and rather search.  Search for someone to have their eye on her.

She deserves that.  Everyone child deserves that.

While the other kids performing were jumping she stood still.  And when they switched to another language the only language coming out of this little girl's heart was a cry.  "Do you see me because I don't see you?"  She continued to search. 

Isn't it like that with God?  We scan and scan the crowd hoping He's somewhere out there, hoping He showed up even though everywhere we look, He doesn't appear to be.  Hoping in the midst of our trial that He hasn't gone 'on holiday'.  And all the while, He's standing in the very back, smiling and trying to catch your attention.

"I see you.  You don't see me, Little One, but I see you.  I have you locked right in my gaze.  See?  That's me waving.  I see you."

He says that to us, you know?  Maybe not in that language but He says that to you.  Stay on the bleachers, pick back up with the song, jump and shout about Rudolph and rest from scanning the crowd. 

Because He sees you.