I SEE YOU, YOU SEE ME, HOW CAN I SEE ME?

It’s been a long week, have lost more than a few hours sleep in the middle of the night thinking of Nev and praying for him, trusting all will be well, and fortunately things are looking up a few days down the track. Nev was brought out of the coma, none the wiser about what had happened, had no memory of falling which I understand is quite common for traumatic accidents and head injuries, but will remain in hospital while all his injuries are assessed and treated.

So, with the lack of sleep I was wondering whether I was looking a bit older than my years when a customer in the General Store where I was working this morning commented when my friend Cheryl was talking to me “Oh, is this your daughter?” to which we both cracked up, seeing as she is only five years younger than me. Wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or an insult to either of us, think it was more that he wasn’t really that observant, was quite a funny moment.

It’s interesting in those moments to wonder what other people are seeing when they look at you. We spend much of our lives projecting ourselves in such a way that we will be thought of favourably, that we will come across as halfway decent and competent, but we never really know how we’re seen. We don’t have the luxury of living inside someone else’s skin, to look out through their eyes, to experience the emotions and responses our behaviour has on others, to see ourselves as we are seen.

One of my all time favourite books is Mister God this is Anna by Fynn, the true story of 5 year old Anna who was found on the streets of London in the 1930’s, and how she viewed the world in the light of her relationship with Mister God. I recently found a second hand copy of Anna’s Book, also by Fynn which includes much of her own writing, complete with spelling mistakes (quote below has correct spelling to make it easier to read).

For Anna, every life experience and everything around her was useful in her pursuit to understand ‘what it was all about,’ and this whole idea of seeing yourself became quite obvious to her. It was one thing to think about a person, where it’s all in your head, but another thing entirely to love them, where what’s on the inside is brought to life in outward action.

When it all comes out of my head….Mummy goes inside me and I go inside Mummy. If I don’t go inside Mummy, how can I look at me, because I look the wrong way. So when I love Mummy then I go inside her and look out of her eyes and see me and see how much Mummy loves me…

If someone loves you they let you come inside. But if they don’t love you, they don’t. Well, Mister God is like that too. He lets you come inside and see yourself, but you got to let Mister God come in too, because he wants to look out to see himself. You see, if…Mister God doesn’t look out of people’s eyes, how does he know what people think of him?

Wrap your brain round that one. If you want your brain stretched, your thinking challenged and your heart stirred, I can’t recommend Mister God this is Anna highly enough.