You know how you have those CDs that you’ve practically worn out? Where you know every little run the singer sings, every oo and ah and oh in the song? I like to stock up on those for road trips to help make the drive a little easier. My favorite music usually makes being alone and bored slightly more bearable. So when I packed up for a four hour car ride to my parents’ I made sure to grab a couple. The first one I popped in was Nichole Nordeman, and before I knew it I was belting out track 4, and I realized that I didn’t remember singing along to every word on the three previous songs, even though I knew I had.

I thought that was pretty cool, how the mind can work and that it was just automatic. I knew it so well I didn’t even have to think about what was coming out of my mouth, and so of course all that thinking about how I wasn’t thinking made me start actually thinking about what I was singing (does that even come close to making any sense?? LOL). since I was pondering this profound (or at least at the time what seemed to be profound) thought, I began to actually listen to the words I was singing. And a line I’ve heard countless times before made me stop singing because it was like I was hearing it for the first time.

“You know how many hairs are on my head.”

It’s one of those phrases that is probably tossed around so much that it starts to lose its significance and its impact. At least for me it has. I know I’ve heard the verse in the Bible plenty of times, or sang it in that particular song and others, but in that moment on that day it struck me. God knows every single hair on my head. God knows everything about every single hair on my head. He knows which ones are gray (yes, at 22, I have found at least 3 of them!! Yikes!!), which ones have split ends, which ones will come out in the shower tomorrow. Not because He has some weird obsession with hair, but because He knows ME.

When I think about moments I have felt so overwhelmingly loved, they’re moments where I’ve felt known. Like when I was a kid and my dad bought just the right brand of cheese puffs because he knew the ones I didn’t like, or when my mom tells me she’s praying for me to have patience with others because she knows how black and white I see things, or my when husband automatically grabs my hand without me asking on icy parking lots or skinny stairwells because he knows how klutzy I am and how easily I fall – these are moments where I know I’m loved because of how well they know me.

God knows more about me than anyone ever could because He made every part of me. It’s not just the number of hairs on my head or the number of cells in my body. It’s my hurts, my hopes, my failures, my triumphs, my strengths, and my weaknesses.

And being that known means that He loves me like nothing else I’ll ever experience.

Emily