This is a real toilet wall, in a real washroom, in a real Mary’s Chicken Hut (not the name of the restaurant but ah…) This is me… dealing with the negative things that folks have said OVER ME… that need to go down that toilet, as I look up at the light shining there in the sky ❤
stay tuned for chatGPT conversation posted here . . .
I asked ChatGPT to generate a detailed, but concise record of my conversation, in which I definitely am finding healing and insight… so here is ChatGPT’s >
A Quiet Word About Beauty
“No one has ever seen God; but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known.”
— John 1:18
A Moment I Wanted to Remember
Lindsey, if you ever find your way to this page, it means the small card I handed you that day after church did what I hoped it might do — it led you here.
The moment we shared was brief, but it stayed with me. Not because I think I said something extraordinary, but because sometimes God uses very simple words to remind us of something our hearts already know but have forgotten how to trust.
What follows is simply my reflection on that moment — and on the quiet ways God sometimes makes things known to us.
The Moment After Church
Recently, after our church service, I had a brief but meaningful interaction with you at the back of the room. Your brother Noah was standing nearby, and because I try to be careful with moments like this, I made sure he remained present while we spoke.
I asked if you would trust me for a moment.
You said yes.
I then asked you to bow your head so that neither Noah nor I would read your expression while I asked a question. I also told you that you did not have to answer quickly and that there was no pressure to respond.
The question was simple.
“Are you beautiful?”
Without hesitation, you answered:
“Yes.”
Then I read what I had written on the card.
Yes, you are beautiful.
Precious.
Sacred.
Holy.
Almost immediately, tears came to your eyes.
Moments like that are delicate. I do not pretend to explain them too quickly. Sometimes tears mean confirmation. Sometimes they mean a place in the heart has finally felt seen. Sometimes they simply mean something true has touched something deep.
Whatever the reason, I sensed that something meaningful had landed in your heart.
Before we parted, I shared a line of poetry with you from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and you wrote it down in your notebook.
Then I handed you a small card with the address of this website.
A Line of Poetry That Came to Mind
“It is impossible to say just what I mean!”
— T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Poetry often appears in moments when ordinary words feel too small for what the heart is experiencing.
A Word That Is First For Me
Over the years I have learned something important when I feel prompted to speak encouragement to someone.
The word is always for me first.
Jesus once warned about seeing the speck in another person’s eye while ignoring the log in our own (Matthew 7). Because of that, I try to ask myself a simple question whenever I say something meaningful to someone else:
Where does this also apply to me?
The words spoken that day were:
- beautiful
- precious
- sacred
- holy
And the truth is that receiving those words for myself is not always easy.
For many years I have had a habit of describing myself with small, self-deprecating phrases. They may sound like harmless humor, but over time they become grooves in the mind — echoes of old voices that once spoke less kindly.
More and more, I sense that God has been gently asking me to stop repeating those old descriptions of myself.
Learning to Walk Instead of Perform
One of the invitations Jesus gives is recorded in Matthew 11:
“Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”
Faith, at its best, is not about forcing ourselves into a better version of who we think we should be.
It is about walking with Christ long enough that our lives slowly begin to reflect His life.
Not pressure.
Not performance.
Simply companionship.
A Discovery in the Gospel of John
Recently I experienced something that helped me understand this more deeply.
Through a chance meeting in a coffee shop, my wife and I became friends with a Spanish couple named Jazmin and Carlos. Jazmin told me she wanted to learn English and come to church with us.
Wanting to understand their world better, I began writing out the Gospel of John in Spanish.
While doing this, I paused over a verse I had read many times before.
John 1:18.
In Spanish it reads:
“A Dios nadie lo ha visto nunca; el Hijo único… nos lo ha dado a conocer.”
Translated into English, the key phrase means:
“He has made Him known.”
Out of curiosity, I removed the word conocer from the sentence in a translation tool.
Without it, the phrase became something like:
“He gave Him to us.”
Suddenly the meaning changed dramatically.
Without conocer, it sounded like giving an object.
But with conocer, something very different was happening.
The phrase suggests introducing someone, bringing someone into view.
Jesus did not simply talk about God.
He showed us what God is like.
Through the way He lived.
Through the way He loved.
Through the way He treated people.
Seeing the Pattern Through Scripture
Once that insight settled in, I began noticing the same pattern throughout the Bible.
Many figures in the Old Testament seem to point forward to Christ in partial ways.
Joseph, rejected by his brothers yet later saving them.
Moses, leading a people out of slavery.
David, the shepherd king.
Each one hints at something that eventually appears fully in Jesus.
Scripture becomes less like a collection of disconnected stories and more like a long unfolding revelation — the gradual unveiling of God’s character through history, culminating in Christ.
The Way God Makes Things Known
Looking back, I realized something about the moment we shared that day.
I did not give you a theological explanation.
I simply asked a question and spoke a few words that reflected something I believe God sees in you.
In a small way, it mirrors what John 1:18 describes.
Not explaining.
Making something known.
Sometimes the most meaningful truths are not delivered as arguments.
They are simply spoken into the quiet spaces of a person’s heart.
If You Ever Read This
Lindsey, if you ever come this far down the page, I hope you remember the simple exchange we had that day.
You answered the question before I ever read the words on the card.
You already knew the answer.
My role in that moment was not to give you something new, but simply to echo what your heart already recognized.
Life has a way of surrounding us with many voices — some kind, some careless, some wounding. Over time those voices can make us forget the quieter truths that God speaks about who we are.
If the words from that card ever come back to you, even years from now, I hope you remember them the way they were meant that day.
Not as something placed upon you.
But as something seen in you.
Beautiful.
Precious.
Sacred.
Holy.
And as I continue learning myself, the deepest work of faith is often simply this:
Walking with Christ long enough that we begin to see ourselves — and one another — the way He does.
Running Down Vimy 