There are people I think of often—people I dearly Love, and people I barely know—who have not yet come into the Kingdom of God through Christ His Son. Sometimes they are family. Sometimes they are strangers. Sometimes they are simply the familiar faces the Lord has quietly placed along the path of my life.
Years ago, a clerk at the grocery store chased me down just to compliment my long curly hair. It may sound like a small thing, or even out of context, but it was not small to me. At that time, God knew how deeply I needed to be seen and acknowledged. Rejected again by my mother, wounded again by the lies my uncle had spread about me, I felt lost in my sorrow. The question pressed hard against my heart: Where do I belong?
And there, in that ordinary place, Love found me.
Not romantic Love. Not flattery. But a small human kindness that carried something greater. It was as though the Lord Himself was whispering through that moment: “I see you.“ I hear you. You are Mine, and I Love you.
That is the tenderness of God. He reaches for us in ways that seem almost hidden, yet touch the deepest places. He knows when the soul is fraying. He knows when despair has made us feel forgotten. And sometimes, through the simplest encounter, He lets His Love chase us down.
I did not know then why I seemed to keep running into that clerk over the years. But when I saw him again and, during our small talk, asked if he would spend Easter with his family, he answered bluntly, “I don’t believe in Easter or God.” I walked away sad, because in that moment, he reminded me of myself years ago, when I, too, said those same words in my heart—until Easter Sunday over twenty-five years ago, when God met me at church.
So now I pray differently when I think of him.
Not with judgment,
but with remembrance.
Not with distance,
but with hope.
For I know what it is to be gathered. I know what it is to stand outside belief, and then be met by the mercy of God. I know what it is to cross from death to life because the Lord did not leave me where I was.
And so my prayer rises for him, and for all those still standing at the edges of grace:
Gather us, O Lord, as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
For this is Love: that God still seeks, still calls, still sees, still gathers. And those who have been found cannot help but long for others to come home too.
Sacred Pause
Sit quietly with the Lord for a moment.
Who has God placed on your heart—someone near, someone far, someone familiar, someone who once unknowingly carried kindness into your life? Bring them before Him gently. Do not force the outcome. Simply place them in His hands.
The God who gathered you knows how to gather them.
A quiet prayer of repentance and return
Lord Jesus,
Forgive me for the times I have forgotten where You found me. Forgive me for every trace of pride, impatience, or unbelief that would make me lose tenderness toward those who have not yet come to know You. Thank You for the ways You have chased me down with Your love, even in ordinary places, even through ordinary people.
Gather those I Love under Your wings.
Gather the weary.
Gather the resistant.
Gather the wounded.
Gather those who say they do not believe, and let Your mercy meet them where they are.
And gather me again, too, Lord, wherever grief, rejection, or old wounds still leave me feeling displaced. Let me rest in the truth that I am seen, heard, and loved by You.
In Jesus’ Name, amen.
Those who have been gathered by mercy cannot help but pray for the wandering to come home.