“Mama!” My eight-year-old yells at me from the living room. “I’m gonna take my scooter out in the front!” She straps on her helmet in the spring heat and she darts out of the door in her pjs and flip flops.

She’s already taken a bath and is looking for something do to in the in-between time between dinner and bed. The light is late these days and, like many of us, she is restless.

Up and back, she races herself during the magic hour between one end of the block and the other end of the block. I go out to watch her, because like her, I’m a little restless between dinner and bed.

“Can you video me?” she calls as she scoots past. And what she is really asking is,

“Are you watching me?”

“Can you see me?”

“Do I make you proud?”

Of course. I don’t have a lot of space on my phone right now because I take so many pictures so I wonder if it will even take a proper video.

I plop in the grass and turn my eyes and my phone to watch her.  She sprints this way and the other way, and I film it.

Trying to make me proud, she spins out and tumbles {luckily} into the grass. “Get up baby-girl,” I shout to her. “You’re fine!”

I see her. I see it all. I see her successes and I see her failures, large or small.

She laughs and flip-flops across the sidewalk over to me. She unsnaps her helmet and rolls over in the grass. “Let me see it,” she begs. I give her my phone and let her watch the video of her own self.

“Look at me go!” And she squeals.

“I know,” I tell her. “You are so fast.” And I praise her and tell her that she’s amazing and I’m so proud of her.  She’s still scared of learning how to ride a bike so going super-fast on a scooter is her next-best-adventure.

We lay back in this grass and we watch the sky turn a pinch more purple and a little less blue.

And then I know that this is all we want of God. This is all we really want of Him. For Him to see us. For Him to watch us. We want Him to plop on the grass next to us and simply be.

We each have this deep-set need for our spouses, our children, our friends or even our parents to really see us. We want them to notice us. But what we forget half the time is the Creator of the universe is already out there on the spring-grass with us watching us succeed and fail – and He’s enjoying US the whole time.

He is saying, “Get up, baby-girl. You can do this!”

He is saying, “I’m watching you.”

He’s saying, “I’m proud of you.”

And He’s saying, “I see you.”

The best thing about it all is that He sees the successes, failures {all of it} – and He still loves us so.

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