It is a strange thing that in a world so noisy, so endlessly full of talk and images, so many of us feel unseen. A young woman may be praised for her appearance, her achievements, or even her kindness, and yet she may go to bed at night with the deep suspicion that no one has truly noticed her at all.
This hunger to be seen is not an accident. It is not a weakness to be ironed out of you, nor is it solved by a larger circle of admirers. It is a signpost. It points to the reality that you were made to be fully known and fully loved by Someone greater than the shifting affections of this world.
The Longing Beneath the Surface
We spend much of our energy patching together an image of ourselves—our reputation, our “brand,” as people now like to say. And yet, all the while, there runs beneath the surface a quiet, unyielding desire: “Is there someone who loves me not for the mask, but for me?”
The Christian claim is scandalously bold in answering this question. God Himself, who fashioned the stars and called them by name, also fashioned you. He does not merely tolerate you. He delights in you. The Scriptures tell us that He knit you together in your mother’s womb and calls you “precious in His sight” (cf. Psalm 139:13, Isaiah 43:4).
Now, if this is true—and the Christian faith insists that it is—then our desperate chase after human approval becomes not only exhausting, but unnecessary. Like a child who insists on gathering pebbles while standing on the shore of the sea, we are clutching at trinkets while the ocean of God’s love waits to wash over us.
Not Niceness, But Newness
Yet let us clear away a common misunderstanding. Many suppose that Christianity is a system designed simply to make you a bit more polite. Smile more, curse less, go to church on Sundays, and avoid the nastier vices. If that were all Christ had to offer, He would hardly be worth the trouble.
The truth is far more daring. Christ did not come to produce “nice” people—He came to produce new people. Think of it like this: if you patch up a dying tree, give it a fresh coat of paint on the bark, and hang plastic fruit from its branches, you may fool passersby for a moment. But the tree is still dead. Christ offers not cosmetics but roots—living roots that go down deep and draw up life.
He means to transform you from the inside out, until the love that flows from you is not borrowed or manufactured but real, because it is His own life at work within you.
Fear and Freedom
Of course, this prospect may frighten you. Transformation always does. To be changed by God is to surrender control. It is to admit that you are not, after all, the architect of your own soul. That thought can feel terrifying.
But here lies the paradox: only when you release control do you find freedom. Think of a bird. If it stubbornly insisted on living as a fish, it would spend its life floundering and gasping. Only when it embraces its true design—wings, not fins—does it discover the joy of flight. So too with us. We were made to live in union with God. When we rebel against that design, we are miserable; when we accept it, we discover what freedom was meant to be.
A Life That Stands
The world tells you to build your life on success, romance, money, or approval. But these are sandcastles, and the tide always comes in. Christ invites you to build on rock. He put it bluntly: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock” (Matthew 7:24). Storms will come—disappointment, loss, failure—but the house will stand because its foundation is not of this world.
A Christ-centered life is not a life without storms. It is a life that withstands them.
Love in Action
And then there is love. Christ tells us plainly that love is the measure of our lives. Not the sentimental kind that evaporates when it is inconvenient, but the real thing: self-giving love that costs something. Consider the widow in the Gospel who gave two small coins to the temple treasury (Mark 12:42–44). She had so little, yet she gave her all. Christ called her gift greater than all the gold of the wealthy.
Holiness is not an abstract glow that settles on the pious. It is lived out in hidden acts of generosity, in courage to speak truth kindly, in choosing to forgive, in serving when no one applauds. This kind of love slowly reshapes you, until your life reflects His life.
A Daring Invitation
If you are not a Christian, perhaps this all sounds too lofty or strange. But perhaps, too, you sense a tug within yourself, a quiet voice saying, “This is what you were made for.” If so, take the risk of responding. Pray, even in the simplest words, “God, if You are there, draw me closer.”
If you are a Christian, the invitation is no less daring. Do not be content with a life of surface-level religion. Let Christ make you new. Allow Him into every corner of your life—the corners you would rather keep hidden, the places that feel too messy or too small. He delights to transform those places most of all.
Final Word
Dear sister, the call of Christ is not to become merely “a little better.” It is to become fully alive. It is to become yourself as God intended you to be, radiant with His love, unshaken by the storms of life, and a witness to a joy the world cannot explain.
Do not settle for applause when you were made for eternity.
Veritable with Emma 
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