Human Healing begins with the face

​One of the most vivid memories I have from the birth of my boys is their eyes. From the earliest seconds, their little eyes were searching. And what they most easily fixated on - was a face.

I'll never forget the first time little Elliott's eyes caught mine. Our stares became glued together - interlocked beams lacking any desire to break away.

In those moments, the foundation of Elliott's feeling of safety was a face. And from that moment on, it was up to me to make sure that face would always represent his safety. His healing.

In this month of mental health awareness, I've seen a lot of prompts for us to remind the people in our lives that we are there for them. That if they are struggling, they can talk to us.

I support those reminders.

But I'd also like to remind us there is incredible power in the face. In our mere presence. In fact, sometimes presence alone can exceed the power of a million words. That is, if we've established our face as a safe place to be.

If our face has been a place free of fear and guilt and shame. If our face has been a place of acceptance and of invitation. If our face has been a place that can be counted on. Then our face alone says you are not alone.

Think of that person in YOUR life. The person who walks into the room of your suffering, you see their face, and in an instant your suffering begins washing away. In an instant, there is a wave of hope.

There have been no words spoken, there is only a face.

There are a lot of people in the world - more than there have ever been - who can not picture that face. They have no idea what it looks like, or what it feels like, for a mere face to bring such waves of hope.

For people who don't have faces in their lives that look like hope, words of hope mean very little.

One of my favorite scriptures is Numbers 6:25 - "may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you."

When I hear that, I accept it as a reminder that God's face is indeed shining upon me. But I also accept it as a challenge. A challenge to be the face that God uses to shine upon others - to have a face that is gracious.

That doesn't mean I'm a face that walks around with a constant smile. It means I'm a face that's more eager to show up for you than it is to speak up to you. It's a face that says I want to hear you more than it says I want to lecture you. It's a face that has so consistently represented light that it looks like a lamp when it enters a room.

I am fearful that the human face is becoming something more and more that we fear in one another, and not something we look to for light. And we have no words that can ever replace the disappearing face.

Because we come into the world looking for our face.

Because we will never ever stop looking for it.