To be known seen heard understood valued accepted approved chosen I need these deeply, intimately, and extravagantly, not superficially, generically, or conservatively. Through my teen years especially, I loved and grew in God with earnesty, but my image of Him was marred. I saw Him as an angry God who loved me but whose approval was hard to attain and whose affection was out of reach. I craved approval and to be found worthy of affection. What I didn’t realize at that time was that I already had His approval, and His affection for me was unmeasurable. I carried this false perception of Him into adulthood, and my broken understanding of His nature and my own worth, left me vulnerable to deception. I sought approval and pursued affection in ways that turned out to be deeply destructive and further eroded not only my sense of worth, but my connection to the One who had everything I desired. After more than a decade of deception, chaos, emptiness, and painful, costly striving and wandering, I cried out in confession to Jesus - “I don’t know how to run my life! Please, you can take all of this, just give me life!” And He did. Systematically, God began to peel away the layers of deception, lies, and misunderstanding of His nature, and of my identity in Him. It took many years to walk out of the mess I had attracted and constructed for myself, but He walked me out as my Teacher, my Friend, my Counsellor, my Lover, my Father, my Redeemer, my Everything. And now there isn’t anything anyone could do or say to convince me that I am not deeply, intimately, and extravagantly known, seen, heard, understood, valued, accepted, approved, and chosen by Yahweh, the Living God.