I met Ms. C in junior high.

All I knew about her was what I could see while looking at her. She had dark hair and thick curls. She had a contagious smile and laugh. The church congregation sat in silent awe when she sang solos in the Christmas Eve services and we all felt special when she welcomed us with hugs.

I genuinely thought she had the best life. She was the wife of a loving husband. She was the mother of adoring children. She was a mentor and one of the few adults who saw beyond the awkwardness and insecurities of my teenage self long enough to teach me some truth.

In high school, I spent more time with Ms. C. I learned that she did have a wonderful life but not because of the people and situations around her, but because she let God be the center of her world a long time ago. She had one of those stories I didn’t see coming.

We had one of those nights at a youth retreat where we talked too much, listened too much and were left with an emotional headache in the morning. There were half a dozen girls in the hotel room, piled into the two beds listening to Ms. C talk about her life and share her hard-earned wisdom. I can’t remember how the talk started but I remember listening intently as if I knew something important was about to happen.

Ms. C had a difficult childhood and a family home that she knew she didn’t want for her own kids. She faced more tears than smiles, more cruelty than love, and more hindrance than help. She said she was lost for too long. That she tried to fill her life with people and temporary things before she grabbed on to God and never let go. Then she said:

“God loves you exactly where you are—but he loves you too much to leave you there.”

That line has stuck with me over the years. I have realized that I shouldn’t be afraid to ask God to meet wherever I am spiritually because He’s able. And I shouldn’t be surprised when He pushes me out of my comfort zone because he knows it would not be good for me to stay the same forever.

When I was a little girl, I snooped around my parents’ things.

I loved finding treasure in my mother’s jewelry box. Sometimes she would take it all out and lay it on her bed. We would sit on her comforter and she would tell me the stories behind each gold and silver piece. I would lightly touch the necklaces, earrings and rings that seemed so grown-up to me.

One afternoon, I was searching through my father’s bookshelf. The wooden bookshelf had glass doors, which made the contents more valuable in my mind. He lined up some of the classics along each shelf. Navy, maroon and gray book covers with gold lettering looked so important to me. I would read the titles and remember what my dad had told me about the whale named Moby Dick, the adventures of Tom, and the revenge of the Count. In the middle shelf, on a bookstand, sat his Bible. I had heard some of the best stories from that book. It was always open; I don’t even remember what the cover looks like. It was larger than his every day Bible, larger than my mother’s, than my brother’s and mine. It was the Bible that never left home.

I opened the glass doors and stood on my toes to reach. I flipped pages back forth; making sure to keep a finger on the page it was opened to and read the various chapter headings. I found a photo of me on one of the pages, tucked into the spine. It was a small wallet sized portrait of a toddler me. I flipped the pages back, closed the glass doors and ran to find my mother.

“Dad has a photo of me in his Bible!” I said in a hurried voice.

My mom turned from her cooking and smiled at me. “Yes.”

“In his big Bible, the one in the bookshelf,” I said. I felt sorry that she seemed to know this already as I was trying to deliver what I thought was something top secret. “Why does he have a photo of me there?”

“Because he prays for you,” she said, smiling as if she was holding a secret. “He started when you were born. You were really sick and were in the hospital for a while. And when you were five and had that surgery, he put your photo in his Bible to look at when he prayed for you.”

“Oh.” I walked out of the kitchen with my back a little straighter and step a little lighter.

I knew about prayer. I prayed before all of my meals, and we prayed as a family every night from the time I can remember. Still, I felt honored that my dad prayed for me when no one was looking. When it was just him with his Bible and God.

I wanted to write and say that I’m praying for what I write here, and I’m praying for you, the gracious individual who stopped for a moment to read this blog. I pray you find encouragement and hope here as I try to share it.

Every now and again I open those glass doors and flip the Bible’s pages. I check if my photo is still there and if my dad still prays for me. When I find it, I turn it back to its page in Psalms and close the doors with my back a little straighter and my step a little lighter.