I EXIST!!!

I saw a license plate on the back of a car that made a big impact on me, it said, “I Exist”.                                                                                                                     

There are times when we all feel invisible, maybe this person more than most, I don’t know. 

Sometimes, like children at play, we act out roles that disguise our real feelings, because it’s easier to be invisible than to stand and loudly proclaim that I Exist, there’s less chance of getting hurt or embarrassed. When we were children, we could pretend and the real me was invisible, others could only see the character I was playing!

I loved to play teacher, I loved to pretend that I had a baby. I had a playmate that always had twins and they were always named Kimberly and Kimberly Dawn… don’t ask. I don’t know.  I had one imaginary baby, always named Susie. I now have two grown children, just not twins, however I do have twin grandsons, named Andrew and Luke!

One day I went storming into the laundry room, in a hurry as usual! When I opened the door, my grandson, then eight, was in the middle of a big fantasy with his action figures all lined up in front of him. I wasn’t paying him any attention, but he quickly turned around and said, “Why did you come in here? I had a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door“! I said “Sorry, I didn’t see it!”  He put his hands on his hips and answered incredulously, “IT’S INVISIBLE!” 

                                                   No wonder I didn’t see it! 

How funny, but it does make a point. 

We ASSUME that people know what we are thinking, know that we need help, know that we are in trouble, know that we are hurting to the core, know that we need a little extra word of kindness on occasions, and when we don’t GET those things that we need, we get our feelings hurt! 

We put out ‘invisible‘ signals and when no one sees them we don’t understand why! 

Jeremiah 17:10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are not as they pretend to be.”

God sees and knows our heart and our signs are not invisible to Him! 

When my parents got married, my dad told mother, “I am not a mind reader, if there is anything you want from me you only have to ask!” 

Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

God already knows what’s going on inside of you, but your (spouse, friend, loved one, fellow worker) doesn’t. So, before you get your feelings hurt because they don’t respond to you the way you need them to do, speak up! 

I was in a tight place for money when I was first starting out on my own and I had a dead line to meet. I prayed and nothing happened, there were no fish with money in their mouths nor did any money drop off a tree, so I, feeling as if God had let me down, asked my dad for the money as a loan. Of course, he gave it to me and when I told him how “God had let me down“, he laughed and asked me if I thought God was a counterfeiter, of course surprised at the question I said “No!” He said, “God made it possible for ME to be able to give it to you, and if I had not been able, it would have come from some other place”…

I understood.  

Make your needs known to the Lord AND to each other, even if you must have a sign made for yourself that says, “I EXIST!”