This afternoon, I woke up from a one-hour nap feeling groggy and sick. I had a date with Nina, who is also my neighbor, and was tempted to back out but I knew that I needed to go and I’m glad that I did.

Nina is someone I meet every week to talk to about God. It’s like a bible study of sorts. Our church has a name for this ‘system’ but I don’t like it. Plus I can’t explain it articulately enough without making it sound like a cult or a support group.

In many ways, it is a support group but it’s also so much more. People are not meant to discover God alone. We all need someone to love us, to remind us to be better than who we really are, to tell us when we’re missing the mark. We need someone to just be there. To say: ‘God loves you. God sees you. You’re going to be okay.’ Nina is that person in my life.

She’s the epitome of patient, constantly hearing me out even if, week after week, my problems are the same. Even though I am a private person by nature, I am compelled to let Nina have a front row seat to the screening of the mess that is my life. She gets an all-access pass to the screw-ups, the disappointments, the failures, the insecurities and the heartbreak. It’s a messy job but she does it with grace. Week after week, she listens and tells me that she’s not going anywhere and neither is God.

In the pursuit of more than an understanding of God, in the pursuit of a relationship with Him, it is His people who have shown me the best and brightest facets of His being. Nina is just one of the people He uses to remind me that I will always have a seat at His table. That no matter how stubborn I am, I am His and that means that I will always have a place to belong. That even when I hide behind all my disguises, He sees me. That, most importantly, He is not afraid to see me, the real me, and still love me.

At present, our relationship is at a low point. Faith is hard. It requires action but it also requires complete submission to a Being that cannot be seen or touched. And it is the easiest thing in the world to walk away from it all.

But I won’t. I refuse to.

I have seen Him. I have felt Him. Not in the literal sense but with senses that go beyond what I can describe or explain or elaborate. Every day is a reason to try again. A reason to re-connect with the One who keeps me anchored. The One who teaches me to be all the best things about me.

I don’t know how You do it but: ‘In a mess like my life, You see righteousness.’ (Amena Brown)