[Hunt for a Red October] Looking Intently

I've been thinking about gazing lately. 

How often do I tell this little one to look into my eyes? 

Most of the time she avoids this when it is required of her...

but there are countless moments when we catch each other,

 or when she takes my face in her hands and turns it to hers, not allowing me to look away.

It's a rare and special gift, this ability to look another human in the face and to communicate on some level, simply through the meeting of the eyes, the lock of a gaze.

Do animals have any sense of this? Their bodily communication powers sometimes exceed our own, but do they share emotion or bond in any way through the looks that they give?

Sometimes one of the greater challenges of Faith is our inability to see the face of God.

We think that if we could see, believing would be easier.

I think of how many times I tell my children to look at me, and how they want to go their own way.

And I wonder at all the ways God gives me to look at Him, and how I turn to other things.

But lately I am so thankful for the grace that is given to look, even when it is hard and you are afraid.

He works in the most backward of ways.

Hope in the bleakest places.

Light when it is most dark.

Healing from brokenness.

Closeness from pain.

Being Found from seeing you are Most Lost.

Finding Life when you Lose Yours.

When, in these recent days I have felt most humbled, most ashamed of my ways, 

I have found that looking at Him has lifted my face.