In-to-me-see

I'm reading a book by Jack Frost called Experiencing the Father's Embrace. It's a little bit more 'manly' of a book than I normally read, but I find that I can relate to many of his thoughts even if our life experiences are very different. Today, I came across this passage: Most of us struggle through life because we are afraid to receive and give love. We are basically afraid of intimacy (in-to-me-see)...This hinders us from having intimate fellowship with God and healthy relationships with others. He goes on to talk about the core of this fear being deception. This deception is because of a lie we have been told by the enemy of our souls, 'the father of lies', who he has lied to us about the character of God. And we begin to believe it...

I've been working on this word - intimacy - and learning what it truly means. Unfortunately, the enemy of my soul has lied to me since I was a little girl and led me to believe that intimacy only means one thing...and that one thing is NOT something a little girl should know about. Thus, I learned to fear intimacy in one specific situation; and then allowed those lies to pour over into all areas of intimacy making all intimacy 'bad' and scary.

According to Webster, intimate pertains to the inmost character of something, being very familiar, or resulting from careful study or investigation. In-to-me-see. Isn't that what God wants? Doesn't he know my inmost character? I love the idea of God carefully studying me and being very familiar. Ultimately, that's what I want, too: to know God intimately, to study Him, become so familiar with Him. With time (and healing), I know I will learn who God really is...and I will allow Him to know me, too, intimately. I'm already learning; taking those lies and turning them into the truths that God has had for me all this time. Truths that will not only allow me to trust Him, but to trust others- and to allow others to see me...to know me... In-to-me-see...