Seeing Myself Through GOD'S Eyes

I've only been in Thailand for a few weeks now, but it's safe to say that I love it here! 😃
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The weather is warm and so are the people; the food is delicious as well as affordable, and the country itself is all sorts of lovely. I have always loved learning - and it's no different here. I am learning A LOT each and every day.

​One of the things that really adds to the learning experience here is the school bus that picks us up from our respective homes and takes us to school every day. 🚌 It also goes to Market Village - a mall where we do our shopping for food, toiletries, and also where we eat some of our meals. The school bus runs at different times during the day, with the last one leaving the mall just before 9pm.
It also operates during the weekends - a fact that I am very grateful for - but the weekend buses aren't as popular among the students. Nevertheless, every Saturday and Sunday it comes for those of us who require its services, and drops us at and picks us up from the mall without fail.
One Saturday evening, I decided to have dinner at the mall and went there on the bus. Needless to say there weren't many people in it. I was pretty sure that the one going back home would be even emptier, and suddenly I started panicking, wondering whether that bus would come at all; after all, most of the other students on the bus with me alighted before we reached the mall - meaning that they had probably already reached their respective destinations - so I was probably going to be the only one waiting for the bus home.

Would it be worth it for the driver to come to the mall to pick up only one student? I wondered.
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It was then that I realized that it didn't depend on the numbers - even though I was the only person using the bus that day, it would have to come pick me up and drop me back home.
It reminded me of a sermon I heard a while back in church. Our pastor was preaching about Jesus' death and resurrection. He started by talking about God's love for us, and how it compelled Him to send His only son to die for us, so as to reunite us with Him. Afterwards, he mentioned something that I wasn't expecting to hear him say: "Do you know that if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would've still come down and died for you?"
In John 3:16, the Bible talks about God's love for the world when it mentions Him sending His only son. But in that moment our pastor managed to make that verse personal to me. If I were to replace the words "the world" with my name (or anyone else's name for that matter), the Bible verse would still be true. God loves me so much that He was willing to send His son to die for me to be reunited with Him. ♥

I had never thought of salvation like that before that moment!

Sure enough, the bus came for me that evening, and it felt good in that moment to realize my value as an individual. In the same way, the revelation that Jesus would die for me if I was the only person on earth showed me my personal value to God - something that can't quite be put into words. It made me see myself differently...it made me see myself through God's eyes.

- ✗O✗O.