sweet girl

I’m imagining my mind as some external thing, like a glass orb, maybe a little bigger than the size of my head. I imagine holding it gently in my hands, having compassion and sympathy for the heaviness of it, gently caressing it with my thumb like I do to those I love.

I imagine it like a little girl, so precious, so worthy. Wiping tears from her cheeks with my thumbs. My heart breaks for her feelings of exhaustion and inadequacy. How could I ever hate such a thing? She is so much more than she realizes. I address her as “my love”, “sweet girl”, the ways I long to be addressed by someone who loves me.

“You are safe, darling. My beautiful girl, you are a reservoir of love and light. You have depth beyond what you can understand. You are loved more than you know, you are more than you know”, I tell her. It doesn’t encompass the sentiments that I feel, but it’s the closest I can come to them. If I could rip my heart out of my chest, it would not be enough to illustrate how strongly I feel about her potential, about her worth just as she is.

I squeeze gently her little hands poking out of the sleeves of the pink coat she’s wearing, and I feel like yelling, groaning, crying, squeezing her in an embrace until it’s too much. Instead I smile at her and say “I love you, God loves you more.”

However strongly I care for this little girl, it cannot compare to God’s unfathomable love for her. “Love” does not explain God’s something. I don’t think I have a word for it.

And I’ve forgotten that the little girl is me.