“Miss-able” (06/26/2025)

I remember coming home the first time from college. I was so excited to see everyone in the family. I had missed them. My mother planned a big dinner. My sister and her husband came over. Mother asked me to set the table for everyone. I was setting out the napkins when my older sister came into the dining room. She came over to me and said, “I missed you.” I don’t know why, but I replied, “Really?” And she smiled and told me, “Of course, you’re miss-able.” I will never forget that because I will always remember how I felt when I heard it.

“You’re miss-able.” Don’t we all wish that? Don’t we all want that? Don’t we all hope that if we are gone, we will be missed? Don’t we want others to notice if we aren’t there?

I frequently use my big sister’s words in conversations with others, remembering how it made me feel the day I heard it. To me those two words told me that my being matters. We all need to know that. We all need to understand that. You see, life is based on that. We exist because of the LORD’s love. From our very beginning, we matter. The LORD loves us before we do anything: before we speak, before we walk, before we accomplish great things. The LORD loves us and the LORD asks us to love ourselves. The LORD asks us to love one another – as ourselves – in other words, we are to love ourselves. We are to realize we are loveable; we are miss-able.

And the LORD wove within us His love and we cannot completely settle in no matter where we are because we miss the LORD. We maybe can’t name it – but we feel it. The LORD is miss-able. St. Augustine said it well, “Our heart is restless until it rests in You.” Yes, for sure, the LORD is miss-able.

I ask the youth as I catechize them if they miss the LORD. They are confused sometimes by my question. I try to explain that we are meant to be in close relationship with our LORD. If we stray, if we break off contact, if we stop thinking of the LORD and speaking to the LORD, the silence and the distance builds. And we can find ourselves restless, unable to find peace, to find contentment. Yep, the LORD is miss-able. But sometimes we don’t realize that the yearning within us is for the LORD. Many of the youth don’t realize that until we speak about it.

As we go forward on our journey, following Christ, may we also follow His example of closeness to the Father Almighty. May we always make time to be present to the LORD and allow the LORD to be present to us because we know the LORD finds us miss-able and we know we are restless without Him.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.