What do you think of me?

This can be one of the most fear inducing questions that we ask. Yet, it’s one of the questions that we most want the answer to.

To know the thought space we occupy in another’s mind, to know what they think of our conversations and interactions, the role that we play in the course of their life. The knowledge of these things can either give a sense of ease and reassurance or can send us to a place of uncertainty and insecurity. 

I want to be thought well of. I want others to feel that my role in their life is valuable, that I contribute and help make things better. I want them to think that I’m nice, funny, all of those things. 

But I also want them to know I’m not perfect. I want to know that when those days come and I’m not at my best, there will be grace for my humanity. That there is safety in being myself even when that self is not so nice or helpful at the time. 

In essence, when I ask someone what do they think of me, I want to know that they know me.

I want to know that when they look at me their thoughts are a fullness of my strengths and weaknesses, my gifts and my failings, and that they can still look at me and say “I really care about you and I really like you”.

Because when I ask the question “What do you think of me?’, I want an answer that takes all of me into account. 

This Advent season I’ve been thinking about Mary, Jesus’ mother. This young woman who was living a life as best she could. Poor, engaged to a good man, and then the Angel came to her and turned her world upside down. 

How to have a conversation after that? To have this secret element of who she was that is fundamental to her faith, to her life going forward. This miracle that the world sees as a curse and believes she should be punished for. 

If she had asked someone at that point, ‘what do you think of me?’, what would their answer have been?

What we read in her story is that God begins to answer that question for her. First through the angel who says that Mary has found favor with the Lord. He is her God and she is his. He loves her and has a plan for her.

Then God uses the kind words of others to affirm who Mary is. When she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, before Mary can even tell her what has happened, Elizabeth says “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Luke 1:42-43

I can only imagine that relief and joy that Mary felt. In the midst of her blessed and difficult situation, she has heard loud and clear the love of her heavenly father, and the support and love of her friend. I can’t imagine that Elizabeth was blind to the struggle Mary would have because of this pregnancy and the societal response. But Elizabeth has reaffirmed the truth for Mary. That she is loved by God and by her friend.

When my insecurities raise their ugly heads I forget, sometimes, how loved I am. I forget that God has created me with intention and purpose and love. I forget that there is nothing about me that is a secret from him and he loves and guides me anyway. He doesn’t leave me or forsake me, but rather he gives me good gifts.

Some of those good gifts are the people around me who know me and speak truth into my life. That truth reminds me first of God’s love for me, and then of their love for me. Love that stands alongside my imperfections and niceness. 

To be known by God, to be loved by him, and to be loved and known by others is one of God’s great mercies. We can ask him this question any time and his answer is always the same. He thinks of us, He loves us, we are his.