Today is Tuesday, January 6 of 2026 and I am sitting at the gift my cousin, Jeff, surprised me  with during the summer and I admit that I still get teary-eyed when I think about this gift and when I look across my bedroom and  see it, beckoning me to write my heart out 

As part of my New Year’s promise to myself, I will be committing to writing every Tuesday and Thursday. I  may not always finish a story each day but I will begin one and I will do my best to keep this commitment because it really does matter to me- writing is one of my gifts from God and I want to use His gifts wisely.

So here, I am going off a different path that when  I  first sat down and wrote out the title, “Even Me, Lord, Even Now,” and I am pulling myself back to why this is what I am trying to write about.

Every morning, I do devotionals on the YouVersion app and the other day the question arose,”What would you do if Jesus came up to you right now,” and It was about 6 45 in the morning and I laughed out loud and wrote down, “ I would pour  Him a cup of coffee and then sit real close so I can read His lips.”

I got to wipe the tears away as I am typing this because that is so deeply ingrained in my being that my first instinct is to get close enough to read His lips which means close enough to touch Him and be touched by Him.

Then I wrote on the devotional that I would ask if we can sit at my kitchen table because the light is better in there with the three large windows  and maybe I would see what He wanted for breakfast and then it just hit me like a 2 by 4- I would automatically expect to read  Jesus’s lips and I would immediately  want to make Him coffee and breakfast. 

Even me, even now, Lord. 

I know good and well that when I get up yonder to heaven with Jesus, I will be made  brand new and I will hear and see and walk just fine and dandy but  there is a part of me that holds on to the deaf traits that I really do love- intentional looking at the person I am listening to ,    making eye contact and touching to connect and feel present with that person.

So if Jesus was to knock on my front door at 6 45 in the morning or at 5 45 in the evening, or at midnight, I would open up that door, throw my arms around Him and then pull Him by the hand to the kitchen table and I would have Him take a seat and I  would sit right next to Him and watch His lips move as He spoke to me,  and I would lean forward and touch His knee as He was talking because that would just be natural for me.

I  try to imagine what it would be like to hear clearly, to hear and understand words without reading lips and I  just have the hardest time wrapping my mind around that. I think about how I would love to hear the water running in the sink, and not  have to see it and feel it to know it is running. I think about what it would be like to hear someone from across the room,   and to catch the conversations at the gatherings, and I think about how wonderful it would be to be able to listen to the preacher man without staring at my AVA app on my phone…… but for some reason when I imagine being with Jesus, I can only imagine being close enough to lip His lips and to reach out and touch Him. 

And here is where I start to cry again…. When I gasp the truth that Jesus WILL  want to sit at my table with me.

Even me, Jeanna’, even now.

Jesus will still want to be with me, even knowing all about me, even knowing that I will want to sit up close and read His lips and get into His personal space and touch Him and gaze intentionally upon His face and eyes,  even knowing full well every single sin I have ever committed and every time I didn’t follow His prodding, or listen to His whispers and warnings, and every time I shortchanged Him for something far less worthy, He still would chose to sit with me.

Even me, even now.

This just  hits so hard. I think of all the times way back in elementary school when no one would sit with me at the lunch table.   The kids would get up and move if I sat down at the table and then launch spit balls at me.    I started running outside to hide among the trees because it was so painful to sit at a table all alone and see  all the other kids talking and laughing like kids are meant to do.

I felt so left out and sometimes I still do.

 Even now.

That is why I couldn’t go back to a church we had been attending for several months. When my husband and my son and I went to a pot luck gathering one spring after services, we filled our plates and stood there, looking at all the tables with people talking and laughing and no one invited us to join their table, no one scooted over to make room for us and no one made us feel wanted.

The three of us sat down at the end of a long table by ourselves and as I looked at my husband and my son, I thought to myself, “even here, even now, even them,” and I knew we  could have gone to any cafe or restaurant and sat together and enjoyed each others company so much more without feeling like we had been  overlooked and left out at a pot luck gathering.

I felt like my deafness was the reason we were not  invited to be included with others because  it does take a little extra effort to sit close and make sure I can read everyone’s lips and sometimes people have to repeat or explain what I missed and that is just too much trouble.

But not to Jesus.  

He wants to sit with me and with my son who also needs to read lips to fully understand  and HE would not think that  we are too much  trouble at all.  

In that devotional it also made me  think about something that I have really felt in my heart of hearts and that is this…

“How would I act, how would I speak, what would I say and do if Jesus was in the room with me right then, too?’

Even then,even now, even there, even if…

This puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?  

If Jesus was at the pot luck gathering, I wouldn’t be hurt that nobody invited me to sit with them because I would be right across from Jesus.  When I get into an Uber car with a driver that is a stranger, I realize they are made in  God’s image and Jesus loves them, too, ever bit as much as He loves me, and Jesus is right there when I am reading the lips of a client, when I am trying to keep my eyes  open and when I am preparing for whatever I am about to do. 

Jesus is right there with me.

Yes, even me, and, yes, even now.

All because He loves me that much.  I can read His lips. I can read His word.  He makes room for me at His table. He wants me there, Even me, even now. 

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of  my enemies . You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”   Psalms 23