You Knew Me!

It’s been almost a year since I met Buford Stitcher. Mr. Stitcher is an older gentleman who lives in Randolph County. I became aware of him ten or fifteen years ago after my husband saw an article about him in our local paper. The significance is that he’s from my hometown. He travels here once or twice a year for a local event. When I asked my mom if she knew anything about him she was quick to reply, “Oh yes! He and your Dad go way back.”

I thought I knew about all my dad’s friends but this was news to me. Whatever the case after my own involvement with the organization he was with, it was hit and miss trying to get up with him. And it finally happened last spring.

When I met Mr. Stitcher I introduced myself and told him who my parents were only to see an astonished reaction as his face dropped and his hands went into the air, “You little girls! I can’t believe how you’ve grown!”

It was my turn for an epiphany. For a moment I was five years old instead of fifty. He knew me.

I have to believe this is how Nathanial felt when Jesus announced “I saw you when you were under the fig tree,” and how the woman at the well felt when she ran into the village proclaiming, “Come see a man that told me all I ever did!”

There’s something comforting and liberating about being known. I immediately felt a kinship and freedom of relationship in the knowledge that Mr. Stitcher had known me as a child. It meant a lot later that year as he hugged me at my father’s viewing.

I take joy today in that my God, my Father in heaven KNOWS me and loves me, and unlike all my earthly relationships that I can only live in ‘in the moment’, He lives in those moments before and behind me as well and loves me there too. He knows who I was yesterday, and is working to change me into who I should be tomorrow.

How can I not love him and accept his comfort today?