My friend, Allie, walked me out to my car after Bible study ended and we had collected all our children from their classes. As I was loading Shep’s stroller in the trunk of my van, she shoved a $20 bill in my hand and told me to treat my kids to lunch on the way home.
“Allie, thank you, but you really don’t have to do that,” I said hastily.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to,” she replied. “How are you, Katie?”
“I’m doing fine,” was my immediate default response.
“No. Really. How are you?” she countered.
I burst into tears upon her gentle insistence that I answer her not-so-simple question honestly. She actually wanted to know how I was doing. Even if the answer wasn’t pretty.
I proceeded to share about the hardships we were having with Shep’s digestion and the constant guesswork it was to try to stabilize his system. I shared my heartbreak over how he’d been biting his hands and how self-harm was now a regular part of how he expressed big emotions. Like a broken fire hydrant, I spewed forth a list of hardships and intimate agonies we were facing daily that no one saw but us.
Allie pulled me into a tight hug and held me there for as long as I needed. “God sees it all, Katie. He sees it all.”
Allie’s words were the furthest thing from a trite Christian response—they were reassurance from a friend who is no stranger to grief and hardship herself. Allie’s husband was left paralyzed after a dirt bike accident at age 15 and has spent the better part of his life in a wheelchair. She and her husband understand fully what it means to live with limitations and the pain of disability.
Allie proceeded to tell me how she gets it. She knows where I’m coming from. She shared with me about the questioning and sometimes judgmental looks she and her husband get at the gas station when she gets out of the car to fill up the tank while her husband stays seated. How unseen she feels in that moment because the people around her literally do not see the situation at play behind the closed doors of their car. And that is simply a small picture of what happens at a grander scale in their lives each day.
People can’t always see the hurt and suffering that happens behind closed doors, in the privacy of our homes. Those of us with disabled family members can feel especially isolated in our pain, as we truly are in the minority of the people around us. Even within the community of disability and special needs, different diagnoses and the variety of needs are so vast that we can find little overlap even with the people we most closely associate. It’s a lonely road. I have found isolation to be one of the most powerful tools in the enemy’s toolbox.
Yet, while our situations differ in their intimate details, suffering is a universal human experience. There’s not a soul alive who makes it through this life unscathed by pain or hardship.
BUT we can take comfort in the truth of the words Allie spoke to me. God sees it all. God sees me.
In the book of Genesis, a slave girl named Hagar was kicked out of her master Abraham’s home after she bore him a son per his wife, Sarah’s request. After Sarah had a son of her own, her hatred towards Hagar grew and she wanted her out of the picture entirely. Talk about a bum deal for Hagar—she was left destitute, alone, and hopeless because of the sin and choices of others. We find her in chapter 12 in the wilderness with her son, Ishmael, who is on the brink of death. In this rock bottom moment, God comes down and meets Hagar where she is at. He gives her hope for her future and promises provision for her and her son. Hagar’s response is to build an altar to the God she’d only heard about and to give Him the name “El Roi”—the God who sees me.
Hagar undoubtedly faced hardships after this moment. Her life wasn’t tied up in a pretty little package with a bow on top. But she had the strength to move forward because she knew that the God of the universe saw her. He met her face to face and assured her that she was seen, known, and loved.
We may move through life feeling like no one knows what we are going through. We may feel that no one really understands the depths of our pain or sees the intimate details of the hardships we face. And this may be true. But regardless of how many people around us see us, we can rest assured that God sees us. And at the end of the day, He’s the only one that really counts because He alone is the true source of comfort and peace. We are not alone. God sees it all. He is with us through it all. He offers peace and strength for our weary souls. And in His abundant kindness, He sprinkles friends like Allie along the way who “see us” too and are tangible reminders that we are not alone.
Good Shepherd 