"We have been known from the very start...The sort of skirt that looks good. The sort of cap that fits right. We have been made to find these things for ourselves and take them in as ours, like adopted children: habits, hobbies, idiosyncrasies, gestures, moods, tastes, tendencies, worries. We are all these things. They have been put in us for good measure...Perhaps we don’t like what we see: our shapeless hair, our loss of hair, our shoe size, our dimples, our knuckles too big, our eating habits, our disposition...our empty hearts, our sudden bursts of energy, our sudden bouts of depression...Don’t worry. Put away your mirrors and your beauty magazines and your books on tape. There is someone right here who knows you more than you do, who is making room on the couch, who is fixing a meal, who is putting on your favorite record, who is listening intently to what you have to say...There is no space left uncovered." -Sufjan Stevens

"Vito's Ordination Song" by Sufjan Stevens has touched my heart recently, and has reminded me of God's profound knowledge of us, wrapped up in His profound love.

He knew us. When life began with a spark of life, he called us. Psalm 139:3 (NIV) tells us, "For you created my inmost being –– you knit me together in my mother's womb." The New Living Translation's version says, "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body..." Our lives were commanded into being.

He knows about the mole behind your left knee, about the hair that curls up at the nape of your neck, and about your second toe, that grew just a little taller than the rest. He felt the pain from that one rollerblading incident in third grade, and he knows all about the scar left behind.

He wears your clothes. He knows the jeans that don't fit quite right, the shoes with wear at the soles, and the tags of your jackets that scrape your neck raw. He feels them. He has been well acquainted with each garment. Before a word, a line, or a poem stains your lips, He knows. And He doesn't just understand the words, He feels their shape. Their meaning leaves pangs in His heart.

And when Jesus finally makes His glorious return, there will be much "noise and glad," as a bride anxiously awaiting her bridegroom, as John 3:29 says, "The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete." He has prepared a place for us, where worries cease, and joy overflows. Where everything meets its beautiful end.

Friends, he knows each and every grand detail of our lives that carve us into who we are. He doesn't just know our plight, our pain, our circumstance. He feels it. He walked in it (John 1:14). Jesus wore our fragile flesh, as his heart was wrenched by evil, feeling every solitary emotion (Matthew 26:38).

He calls us to find rest in Him –– rest, renewal, and strength. He carries us. "Stop holding on, and just be held."

I love the line in the song, "there's a design to what I did and said." This design is a call to rest. No, it's not by some whim of fate that you're found spinning on a watery rock in the middle of space. There is a design to all that is done, and all that will be. There is a design of nature, of our lives, of our bodies, of marriage. It all connects, holistically, beautifully. There is shalom, and a time where tears and pain will be no more (Revelation 21:4).

God is a God of here and now. Jesus did not simply "do His time," to sit back upon His throne on high. Hebrews 4:15 (NIV) says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin."

Will you trust this glorious design? Things will be so good, so soon. The God that created the creases in your smile, is bringing everything into its full beauty, in good time. You aren't called to hold onto something that is fleeting, you are called to be held by someone that is constant. Understand that everything that has been interwoven in our innermost being is placed with knowledge, precision and love. There will be much rejoicing, much love and so much peace, soon.